


Of Monsters & Men

by capriciouslouis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Slenderman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:34:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 89,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capriciouslouis/pseuds/capriciouslouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What begins with an innocent movie night progresses into a nightmare, with Louis at the centre of it. He’s never believed in monsters, but he doesn’t really have much choice once one starts following him around.</p><p>DISCONTINUED I'M SO SORRY</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Louis had invited Niall around for a study session, and really, he ought to have known that there would be literally no studying involved. When Niall came round with armfuls of snacks and his entire DVD collection crammed under one arm, Louis’ suspicions were confirmed. They were both lazy university students who despised studying; the only real difference between them was that while Louis was willing to force himself to work, Niall never bothered – and he always got better grades anyway, which was an endless source of frustration for Louis.

“I’ve got a bunch of great new movies, Lou; you’re gonna  _love_ ‘em,” Niall proclaimed as they stepped into Louis’ untidy and not very large living room. He couldn’t afford anything much bigger, but it was just as well, really; he was incredibly forgetful and if his flat was any bigger, chances were he’d probably get lost in it. Or at least lose most of his possessions.

Niall was a permanently excited nineteen-year-old; Irish, rosy-cheeked, loving life and hating work. Louis wasn’t sure why the blond had ever enrolled in university in the first place – unless it was because he knew he could get away with doing literally nothing and come out with absolutely perfect scores in every test he ever took. He was taller than Louis, and his eyes were the colour of ink that had leaked from a broken biro, interspersed with flecks of moss green around the middle. The combination was a pair of the prettiest eyes Louis had ever seen, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Most of the time, Niall acted high as a kite even though the only drug he regularly consumed was caffeine; he swore obnoxiously in every conversation like curse-words were an irreplaceable part of his vocabulary and slipped in as naturally as taking a breath; he rarely went anywhere without some kind of food in his mouth and he liked to wear loose jeans or Chinos that hung halfway down his backside so that Louis was ninety per cent sure he could pick out every pair of boxers Niall had ever owned from a line-up of underwear in a pants factory, simply because he got such an unabashed view of them every time Niall walked in front of him – which, as they were late for almost everything and Niall was usually the one hurrying ahead to try and get there on time, happened an awful lot. He was Louis’ best friend, and he had announced that this would be the case from the moment that Louis had walked into their university common room and fallen over Niall’s feet, which were sticking out halfway into the room because he had such long legs and was lying sprawled lazily on a sofa not bothering to keep track of his gangly limbs. It was an unusual start to a friendship, to be hauled to your feet after falling over someone and be cheerfully told, “That was fucking brilliant, I’ve never met someone so clumsy in all my life, let’s be friends!”, but Niall was a good best friend, even if he did have somewhat of an obsession with horror movies, talked with his mouth full and had a slight flatulence problem, so Louis didn’t really object to the situation. He couldn’t really afford to. He hadn’t had very many friends over the years, let alone ones as nice as Niall.

Louis was twenty-one, about a half a head shorter, to his annoyance, brown haired, had forget-me-not blue irises never wore socks, told stupid jokes 24/7, had come to university without really thinking about the logistics of studying for four years and getting into massive debt at the end of it, and worked in a nearby pub on Saturday evenings, which worked out extremely well for both of them, because Louis gave Niall ridiculous discounts on everything and Niall gave Louis ridiculously generous tips for doing pretty much nothing at all other than be his mate, which barely made the discounts worthwhile because Niall had pretty much paid the same amount for his booze at the end of the evening. Not that Louis was going to point this out. When he laughed hard enough, he got crinkles around his eyes. He was often described as being quite feminine, and punched anyone who said so. And he despised the thought of growing up more than anything else in the world, but woke up every morning and realised he was already there.

“Yeah, I bet,” Louis said sourly, shoving past his friend and tossing his keys onto the table, where they landed on top of a pile of homework that was probably due in for tomorrow and which he still hadn’t done, although he’d got it out of his bag just to show willing. “Just like last time. I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

“It hadn’t got to the good bit,” answered Niall defensively, “and you couldn’t possibly know if it was good or not; you were watching it with your eyes closed.”

“Funnily enough, that’s what usually happens when you’re sleeping. An unfortunate side effect. Listen, however much I’d love to subject myself to watching shitty films with you, there’s a little thing normal people do, called  _studying._ It’s kind of a necessity for people who don’t manage to retain every scrap of information going without even listening to it first, so either you help me revise, or you get out.”

Niall didn’t answer him. He just turned on the puppy eyes, fixing Louis with a gaze that could melt a heart of stone like ice cream, and that after almost a year, Louis still hadn’t gained any form of immunity to. He tried to avoid the stare, but everywhere he went, he could feel it burning into his back.

Right now, Louis was torn between doing the responsible thing, which was studying for his end of term algebra test, which would undoubtedly result in his brain turning into soup and pouring out through his ears and leaving an almighty mess for him to clean up later – or the irresponsible thing, which was to let Niall put on one of the many installments of his collection of horror movies so he could watch a simulated brain turn to soup and leak out through someone else’s ears, and the only mess he’d need to clean up afterwards would be popcorn crumbs. Studying maths at university had been one of the worst decisions of his life, granted, but failing it would be an even worse decision. Also, Niall’s taste in movies was abysmal. Therefore, out of both potential ideas offered to him, studying was clearly the better option.

Of course, Louis was not exactly renowned for choosing the better option.

With a sigh, he collapsed down onto his sofa, running his fingers through his quiff and then wishing he hadn’t; it took an awful lot of hairspray to get it to stand up in the first place, and he’d just thoroughly destroyed it. Groaning resignedly, he swept an assortment of textbooks off the table with his bare foot as a display of rebellion, yawned, stretched, then threw a pillow at Niall and reached for an open packet of Doritos that had been waiting for him to finish eating them for about a week. He tasted one experimentally, and it wasn’t  _that_ stale, so he continued chewing the ‘orange cardboard triangles’, as his mother liked to call them, and cast Niall a dirty look across the room. The blond was looking far too excited; he dimmed the lights and skipped over to the TV, swinging a plastic carrier bag filled with snacks with reckless abandon and almost whacking Louis over the head with it.

Louis rubbed his blue eyes. “If I fail my end of term maths paper, I’ll blame you, I hope you realize that.”

“You won’t fail!” Niall announced in a cheery, lilting tone, his Irish accent making the words sound oddly musical as usual. He  _oozed_  optimism. In their first few weeks of friendship, Louis had found it refreshing. After that, it had started to irritate him a little bit. “Staying up and watching movies isn’t going to affect your grade, Lou. It’s nearly the end of term! We get six weeks off after this. Relax a little bit.”

Grumbling at him, Louis crammed more Doritos into his mouth so he wouldn’t be tempted to hurl insults or make allusions to the fact that Niall could stumble out of bed twenty minutes before an exam was due to start, spend fifteen minutes eating breakfast, stagger onto campus just in time to enter the exam hall with everyone else and come swaggering out with an excellent grade at the end of it. He chewed, he swallowed, and then demanded, “What are we watching, anyway?”

“ _Slenderman,_ ” Niall told him as he popped the disk into the DVD player. “It’s based on that legend, you know, the one with the role-playing game? I tried to show you, remember, but you hit me and wouldn’t watch me play,” he said mournfully.

Louis cast him an incredulous glance. “That was because we were in the middle of an  _IT assessment_!” he hissed. IT was another of the subjects he heartily wished he hadn’t taken. “Not a good time to show me some nerdy fantasy game with low-quality graphics and an even lower quality plot, Niall. You do choose your moments to try and drag me into your obsessions.”

Wrinkling his nose, Niall threw himself onto the sofa and pulled Louis’ duvet over their legs from where he had left it on the floor after falling asleep in front of the TV the night before. “Whatever. Better than working, isn’t it? Anyway,  _Slenderman_ is seriously cool. It’s about this creepy spirit or monster or something – nobody really knows what he is – and he doesn’t have a face. He’s really tall and thin, and he dresses all in black.”

“Sounds like Mr. Connoway,” Louis joked, referring to one of their less liked teachers.

“Ha, ha,” said Niall sourly. “Anyway, this Slenderman goes around in the dead of night, picks his victims, and then he stalks them, following them around for weeks on end, sometimes even months. You see him out of the corner of your eye, or in reflections, or as a shadow, or hear weird noises. First it makes you a bit jumpy, then the paranoia kicks in until you’re terrified of everything and everyone; the slightest little noise makes you think Slenderman is coming for you. No matter how many people you tell, nobody believes you; they all laugh and nobody listens, because nobody believes Slenderman exists. He won’t _let_ them believe. And then eventually, it drives you mad.” He tilted his head to one side and widened his eyes impressively. “Then, in the middle of the night, after he’s driven you round the bend, he comes for you, and takes you away, and nobody ever sees you again.”

Louis rolled his eyes; Niall’s voice had dropped to a whisper, and then the menu screen blossomed across the TV screen, a greyish black background with white titles and supposedly eerie music playing in the background that just made Louis snort dismissively, and Niall started flicking through the options, looking incredibly excited.

Then the movie started, and Louis could tell from the first few clunky notes of dreary piano music that it was going to be one of the worst films he’d ever seen.

                                                                                ~*~

By the time the end credits were scrolling across the screen, Louis had come to the conclusion that he would have been far better off studying for the algebra test after all, and it would have been a far more productive and less boring use of his time if he had done. Niall had been thrilled by the film; Louis had laughed at the jerky CGI animation used to make the Slenderman, giggled all the way through the first victim’s struggle with insanity (but really, who was driven mad by a few squeaky doors and the odd flicker of shadow out of the corner of their eye?) and when the final girl had defeated the Slenderman after being chased through an old, empty house by knocking over a grandfather clock and crushing him, Niall had stared in open-mouthed admiration while Louis gloomily scoured the bottom of the popcorn bowl for crumbs.

“How great was that?” Niall asked proudly, popping the DVD out and sliding it back into its box. “Did you see the bit where Slenderman drove that guy mad, and he pulled the other guy’s head off? That was totally cool.”

“Cheesy,” Louis corrected, “and like I said, the graphics were terrible. Definitely not worth failing my test. You’re not going home until we’ve gone through this entire last module we just studied, and I don’t care what time it is tomorrow morning when we finish; you’re not leaving this house until I’ve studied.”

Niall rolled his eyes and switched the TV off. “Fine, fine, whatever. Hey, can you imagine! What if old Slendy  _does_  exist? How wicked would that be?”

“Not very. They’d probably lock him in a zoo, poor guy. Anyway, creatures like that belong in rubbish, low-budget movies, not the real world. Now where’s my algebra textbook?”

“If he was real, he’d come after you,” Niall muttered. “You saw the movie. Slendy always comes after people who don’t believe in him.”

“Oh, I’m quaking in my boots. You’re  _so_ gullible, it’s laughable. Really. Come on, idiot, get your head back in the real world and help me study, right?” To get his point across, Louis whacked Niall lightly across the back of the head with the textbook he’d just pulled out from under the sofa.

                                                                          ~*~

 Outside the window, a dark figure was crouched in the flowerbed, almost bent double with one hand flattened against the glass, staring silently in. He was wearing black trousers and a black jacket, and his form was as substantial as a shadow; his face blurred, as if you were looking at it through an unfocused magnifying glass. Trying to look at it hard enough to get a good look at him gave you a splitting headache. He didn’t make a sound as he watched the two boys inside, boredly flicking through the darker haired boy’s maths book.

The blond seemed more apathetic, his thoughts filled with food and sleep and girls and films. He looked sleepy and kept rubbing his eyes like he was struggling to keep them open. Whether he would make it home tonight was debatable; he would probably end up curling up on the brunette’s sofa. But he was of no consequence; just a bystander who would be forgotten and mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

It was the brunet who had piqued the figure’s interest. His forehead was furrowed with concentration, tongue poking out of his mouth as he intensely studied the papers in front of him. He had very blue eyes. He was tired, but doing his utmost not to acknowledge his exhaustion. And the loneliness that poured off him in great, thick waves was so tangible that the figure could taste it on his tongue, hear it singing to him like the saddest melody he’d ever heard. It had been a long time since he’d heard a song quite so lonely – in fact, the only time he ever remembered hearing anything more melancholy, more desolate than the song that was echoing through the streets from the boy with the icy blue eyes was on the rare occasions when he’d listened to his own. Very rarely had he ever heard his own soul’s song; usually he listened to other people’s because his own was so full of misery and disquiet. But there came rare occasions when he was so far from civilization that there were no other songs to hear, and he’d rather ache with the terrible sound of his own loneliness than sit in silence.

Focusing on the boy, he wondered, as he always did, whether he was doing the right thing. To frighten a stranger so intensely, as he always seemed to. But in the end, the outcome made the method seem worth it, no matter how terrified the human was beforehand.

It always began by attracting the person’s attention, once he’d found them and listened to their song. He’d heard it once, he’d recognize it anywhere. Bowing his head in regret, a silent apology for the distress he would cause, the figure raised his hand and tapped twice on the window pane with a long, slender finger.

The two boys inside looked up instantly, heads jerking in surprise, but he’d already torn himself away from the window, whipping away and becoming insubstantial shadows that clung to the wall of the house and poured down, sticky and disgusting, but not to leave a trace once he’d gone. Still, he made sure that the boy with the brown hair looked up first, quickly enough to just about see the very edge of a trail of darkness flickering in his peripheral vision before vanishing away from the window. As substantial as smoke, the figure evaporated into thin air and nothing else with the sound of a faint whisper, leaving not a trace behind that he had ever been there other than the slightest memory from the brown haired boy of a slight flicker in the corner of his eye.

“What?” asked Niall.

“Nothing. I thought I saw…nothing.”

“Was that a branch knocking on the window, or something?”

“I suppose it must have been.”

Shrugging, Niall turned back to the book he wasn’t really paying attention to, instantly dismissing the noise, but Louis frowned and wandered over to the window, pulling one of the slightly drawn curtains back and peeking around it, looking out onto the street. Pools of garish orange light formed underneath every streetlamp, and around them, the rest of the night was inky black, as if someone had thrown orange paint onto black paper. He could just about make out the silhouette of a couple of rhododendron bushes, waving slightly in the breeze. There was nobody outside at this time of night, not even any drunken students making their way home after a night out. It was perfectly quiet, perfectly still, and that’s why the slight movement out of the corner of his eye made absolutely no sense.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, deciding that tiredness must be to blame. Staying up watching movies and then studying and getting up early to do even more studying must be taking its toll. So he drew the curtains and, as an afterthought, locked the front door, because of course he wasn’t expecting any kind of danger from anything that a locked door wouldn’t deter.


	2. Chapter 2

Louis was gloomily making himself soup with an old packet of cup-a-soup mix that had been languishing in his cupboard since god knows when, and the TV was blaring in the other room, some music channel spilling auto-tuned pop crap into the very furthest corners of his flat simply because he couldn’t be bothered to change the channel. Despite his very best efforts, he’d barely scraped a C in the test and although that was a pass, he still felt extremely disappointed in himself. Niall, however, had emerged with a perfect A. He wasn’t bragging about it, but Louis was finding his company a little insufferable at the moment – through no fault of Niall’s own other than superior test scores – so he’d resigned himself to a day at home, watching chick flicks and feeling sorry for himself.

He dumped the powder in the cleanest mug he had left (and even that had slight coffee residue in the bottom) and switched the kettle on to boil, and he was humming disconsolately to ‘Call Me Maybe’, which was playing for at least the third time in the past two hours. The spoon clinked against the sides of the mug as he stirred absentmindedly, even though he was only swirling powder around inside it.

What caught his attention was Carly-Rae Jepson’s suddenly changing voice; he wouldn’t have been roused from his blank, almost robotic mood if her irritatingly upbeat voice hadn’t changed from perky to low and thick, as if she was speaking with a mouthful of rocks. Louis frowned, looking up from his mug, and stared over at the kitchen door, craning his neck to try and see through into the living room. She sounded heavy and the music seemed to have slowed down an awful lot, and it honestly wasn’t much of an improvement. In fact, it grated on his nerves even more than the song itself usually did. He supposed it was some kind of remix, which he always hated, and in his opinion, remixing a song which barely fit the definition of music anyway was a recipe for trouble – and a headache.

Shrugging, Louis reached for the kettle as it clicked and started bubbling, and he occupied himself by pouring water on top of the powder mix and stirring it around, watching the water turn cloudy beige. He’d almost gotten used to Carly-Rae Jepson sounding like a gloomy forty-year-old man when it sounded like the video started skipping, jumping erratically like a stuck CD and then Louis’ eyes narrowed a little and he set his teeth. He couldn’t be doing with  _that._ For a minute or two he stuck it out, making sure that the spoon clattered extra loudly on the sides of his cup to try and drown it out, but it was beginning to sound like the brunette singer had a particularly nasty, hacking cough. Throwing the spoon impatiently down on the counter, he stormed through into the living room, snatched up the remote and then hesitated.

Carly-Rae Jepson was  _really_ starting to show her age, he mused. Her skin looked greyish, almost  _blue_ ; her cheeks were hollowed and her hair looked darker but a lot messier, falling untidily around her face. _Sack your stylist, love, and get a new one; this one’s rubbish,_ Louis mentally advised her. She looked far thinner, and cavorting around a car with a glazed expression and a horribly forced grin on her face, she looked unhealthy – it was quite disturbing, actually. The screen flickered as he watched, like a candle in the breeze, and Louis wondered whether someone had made a Halloween remix version of the song as a joke – not that it needed to be made scarier, really. Listening to it before he went to sleep gave Louis horrible nightmares about drowning in cheese.

Pulling a face, he decided he didn’t much want to look at Carly-Rae Creepy any longer, he shivered and pointed the remote at the TV, but before he could change channel it spluttered and the screen went blank, and Louis was left staring at his own dumbfounded reflection and feeling extremely surprised.

He thumbed a button on the remote and waited for the TV to react, but it sat there stonily and did nothing. His forehead creased and he pressed a few more buttons, but nothing happened, and he swore colourfully. Now his TV was on the blink – just what he needed. Great. Rubbing his eyes with one hand, Louis tossed the remote onto the sofa, turned his back on the flat-screen and headed back into the kitchen to drink his soup and mourn the loss of his TV, and deliberate over how much it was going to cost to get it fixed and whether he’d be able to eat for a week after he’d splashed out on paying someone to sort it.

His fingers closed around the handle of his mug and then he flinched and narrowly missed throwing chicken soup all down himself as the TV suddenly exploded back into life and Carly-Rae Jepson started squealing about falling and calling and whatever else her dumb song was about, in her usual plastic-coated bubbly voice. Confused, Louis hurried back through and stood in front of the TV, to find that she was looking exactly the same as she had the last couple of times this video had played that morning – with not a hint of emaciated cheekbones or wild hair in sight. She flashed him a white-toothed grin and he gave her the finger and went back to retrieve his soup.

Louis threw himself down on the sofa with what was left of his chicken soup and started sipping it, boredly flicking through the channels. He skimmed over about eight music channels and couldn’t find a song he liked (or even tolerated), so then he started going through all the drama channels, movie channels, and ended up having to choose between a documentary about newspaper printing or the bid-up TV channels. In the end, he settled down to watch a smiling woman try to persuade viewers to buy an extremely ugly necklace (“just  _look_ at the size of the crystals! An ideal gift for any female friend or family member” – “yeah, if they were blind, maybe,” Louis muttered) and burnt his mouth several times on his soup.

He wasn’t paying attention to either the TV or his food, really, so it took him a few minutes to realize that the hideous necklace had vanished off the screen and the channel was rapidly changing, flickering from programme to programme, song to song, so quickly that when he focused on it, he started feeling dizzy almost immediately. Wondering if he’d sat on the remote, he felt around underneath him, couldn’t find it, got to his feet, threw all the cushions everywhere looking for it and then spotted it on the table, untouched and nowhere near anything that could possibly have caused it to change channels whatsoever.

The channels stopped rapidly switching and settled on an advert about laundry detergent, and Louis slowly got to his feet and picked the remote up. He swallowed, used it to turn the TV off, and then removed the batteries and placed them neatly on the table alongside the remote and his empty mug.

“Problems with the signal,” he told himself weakly, ashamed at how his voice cracked a little. There was no one there to hear it, thank god.

The house was too quiet without the TV blaring in the background, but he didn’t dare turn it on again in case the channels started changing by themselves again. He’d see if it had stopped after a few days, and call someone out to it if not. Maybe get Niall to take a look. He spent enough time watching TV, he really ought to know how to fix one.

                                                                    ~*~

Frightening people had never been his intention, nor would it ever be. It appeared, however, pretty inevitable, since he was apparently the most appalling judge of what was scary and what wasn’t that had ever existed. The truth of the matter was that the world rejected him just as everyone else always had, and there were always footprints left behind, betraying his presence no matter how lightly he tried to tread.

Technology, for example, tended to short out when he was around, or at least start playing up. Some of it was his fault – unnerving the brunette boy by playing around with the channels was something he would accept complete responsibility for, since he’d done it on purpose. At first he’d just been hiding in the shadows, quietly observing, and then once the TV had settled down and stopped flickering and protesting at his presence, the boy, Louis, had tried to turn it off. He’d always been fascinated by television; the moving pictures and miniature people telling stories from inside what appeared to be a magic box, even though he  _knew_ how it worked (spending the majority of your life living in creaky old barns, abandoned houses or quiet alleyways didn’t give you much chance to get used to the idea, though.) So he only wanted to watch.

But then Louis had picked up the remote and started playing with the channels, swapping from programme to programme so quickly that it was hard to keep track, and that was even more amazing than just the TV itself. So amazing, in fact, that he wanted to try it himself, and he knew that with his reflexes being so much faster than other people’s, he could do it ten times faster, and he wouldn’t need a remote, so that’s what he did. Hiding in the shadows in the corner, channel-hopping with the power of his mind and skipping through at least three channels a second, he was caught up in gleeful childishness, and excitement, because to see hundreds of people appearing and saying half a syllable and then vanishing and taking the place they were stood and all of the other characters with them to be replaced by another set, was one of the best things he’d ever seen. In fact, he thought it was so great that he got carried away with it all, so when he looked up and saw the shaking brown-haired boy hiding his face as if the TV was scaring him somehow, and that was when he realised – from what Louis could see, the channels were magically changing themselves, and it was unnerving him.

That was when he’d stopped, gazed regretfully at the boy, then quickly left, because he felt guilty as ever for infiltrating a home, the place where these humans felt completely safe, and not even having the grace to do it quietly – meaning that home was terrifying, too. Most of the time, it was an accident, the world reacting to his presence and giving off little signs, the humans’ bodies reacting to him and trying to warn them. But little things like this were when he felt truly ashamed, when frightening them could have been avoided, but he did it anyway. He’d only ever done it by accident, not thinking that it might scare them to have an unknown force imitating them, but even now he knew better, he still sometimes slipped up. Like now, for instance.

It seemed so unfair, to bully the humans, even unintentionally, that he felt horrified by himself and left immediately, sneaking out with more care than he would usually have taken so as not to cause more unease. He felt an especial pang of regret as he left Louis’ house and hoped that he would soon forget the damage that had been done, although he wasn’t sure why this boy had already affected him more than any of the others he’d ever followed around.

Maybe it was because he recognized something of himself in the boy, in the way he battled his exhaustion and pushed his loneliness away, ignoring it to the point where he barely seemed to notice it anymore, a talent that made him extremely jealous. Everything he did these days was an attempt to distract himself from the pang of desolation that every empty hour brought him, whereas simply  _living_ appeared to be enough to keep this boy’s thoughts away from his solitude. That was enough to inspire great envy.

But there was something else, too, which he couldn’t quite put his long finger on. The boy’s shape was pleasing to him – more so than usual;  _everyone_ was pleasing to him in comparison to his own blank face, including the human form he could assume when required to put the humans off their guard when he grew tired of constantly cloaking himself when shadowed, although he got the feeling that he still wasn’t doing something quite right. Perhaps it was the odd intensity of his expression, or the ravenous hunger for company that had him drawing close to complete strangers in a way that made them cast him mistrustful looks, but there was  _something_ that caused the humans unease when, in all ways that they could see, he was just like them. He envied this boy for fitting into society’s jigsaw puzzle, even if he didn’t seem to have quite found the right slot yet.

This was why he was here. To find the other piece of his puzzle that would make him fit, to whisk them both away to a better place, to grant them the happiness that he would never have. So few things gave him pleasure, but this, saving the humans in a way that nobody else could, was one of them.

He would come back for the boy. Observation was key at the moment – watching, learning, understanding what made him tick, so that he could find someone who was perfectly matched. So he could save him. He needed to watch a little longer, look a little harder – it would take a month or so at the most. He was good at this. It was almost as if this was what he was made for.

The thought comforted him – made him feel less like a disgusting, heinous mistake, although he had always been treated as such. Shunned, despised, mistrusted, never finding a place where he fitted in with anyone else. So he shunned everyone else, and watched the humans and the lives they had that he wished so desperately he could have for himself, because observing was the closest he would ever come to sharing. And among them, he found his kin, those who were filled with isolation despite the hundreds of people around them, who wept at night for the companionship they craved that no one seemed able to bring, or even worse, kept it bravely locked inside because they didn’t feel they had the right to weep for loneliness when they had so many good things in life. He brought them together, helped them find each other – he made them happy. In turn, that made  _him_ happy. It was one of the few things he’d found that could.

Silently, he vanished, making his way to where he had made himself a home for as long as it took to save the boy Louis; an old house with broken windows and tangled weeds, where nobody came because they hated the filth and the cold, because humans were so obsessed with tidiness. He was at home with the spiders and the plants, the shadows and the darkness, and he didn’t so much mind the cold; he had shadows to keep him warm. The insects liked him, as did the few animals that didn’t flee when they sensed him there. The weeds grew taller and thicker to obscure him from view. Safe from prying human eyes, he could choose his own seclusion there – he preferred that to being forced into it; at least this way he felt like he had a choice.

He curled up on a pile of rugs and sticks, his attempt at imitating furniture. This was his bed, though it was more of a bird’s nest. Then, he slept, falling into a trance where he was both aware and unaware, mimicking the humans again, because it was one of the few ways he’d found of forgetting it all. One of the few ways he could find peace.

In his trance today, his thoughts wandered to the blue-eyed boy and the fear he’d hidden behind his fingers – and he realised he was  _worried_  for this human boy. That was something new, something he couldn’t comprehend…and as he drifted off to sleep, he dwelled upon that. Yet another mystery to understand.

He was certain he could unravel it before the job was done. He was good at puzzles. He had time.


	3. Chapter 3

Louis was padding barefoot through a wood, with sunshine streaming through the canopy of leaves overhead, looking around at the trees around him and not recognizing anything because every tree was identical to the one next to it. He was stepping on a carpet of pine needles and they felt like moss under his feet. There were goosebumps on his arms because he was only wearing a thin short-sleeved shirt and skinny jeans, odd attire for walking through a wood, but then again, the wood itself was pretty odd anyway.

It was completely silent. There were no birds, no animals, his feet on the ground didn’t make a noise, he couldn’t even hear himself breathe. It was like complete sensory deprivation – for only one of his senses. Strangely, it was calming, although he had the feeling he ought to be panicked by having his hearing cut off; not being able to hear anything coming should have made him uneasy. After all, anything could have crept up on him and he wouldn’t realize until he felt it breathing down his neck. But Louis was completely relaxed, calmly wandering through the trees like he hadn’t a care in the world.

It took a few more minutes before he started to feel a little uncomfortable, pawing at his ears to try and clear them, even though he couldn’t feel any kind of blockage. The back of his neck was prickling, which didn’t help him feel any better, what with the thoughts he’d just had about not being able to hear anyone sneaking up behind him and all. In fact, he found himself checking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure that nobody was stood behind him; he was being paranoid, but he couldn’t stifle the thought that someone could be lunging at him every time he turned his back.

He kept walking, uncertain of which way he was going. For a while he managed to swallow back his fear – after all, there was nothing to panic over, aside from the fact that there was nothing in the entire wood to inspire  _any_ kind of emotion. Just miles and miles of foliage, trees, pine needles, leaves and sticks underneath his bare feet, no noise or movement in any direction. There were no animals or birds, and nothing moved aside from himself. As Louis wandered around the woods, he quickly came to realize that he was completely alone.

The thought made him uneasy for reasons that he couldn’t quite explain. There was something weirdly unsettling about the idea of being truly alone, with not so much as a butterfly to prove to him that there was other sentient life in the world. His whole world was made up of vivid greens and subdued browns; every so often he brushed his fingertips against tree trunks or dropped to the ground to feel the pine needles, just to reassure himself that none of his other senses were lost. He could smell moss and pine and bark. As he chewed anxiously on his lower lip, he could taste coffee, although he had no idea where he was supposed to have got  _that_ from.

Something shifted in the background, impossibly fast, and he whirled around in fright, mouth falling open to cry out, but if he made a sound, it never reached his ears. Realizing that the partial sensory deprivation might not extend to whatever else might be lurking in the forest, he clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the squeak. Shivering, Louis wrapped his arms around himself and picked up the pace, walking a little faster, not slowing or stopping. He was determined to find his way out – he hated this creepy forest, with its silence and shadows and solitude.

After a few more minutes of walking, a loud snap came from beside him – like someone stepping on a branch and cracking it. Freezing, his heart leaping at the realization that he could hear again, Louis looked down, surprised that he hadn’t felt the stick beneath his feet, and his skin started crawling. There was nothing beneath his toes other than smooth moss and crunchy leaves – certainly nothing substantial enough to make that kind of sound.

Licking his lips, he coughed, loudly and deliberately. He could feel the air rising, grating through his throat, but no sound came out. He tried stamping on the ground, leaping up and down, but the leaves didn’t make a noise. He gave a piercing whistle, but again, there was nothing. So what had made the sound?

Forcefully dismissing it, Louis kept walking. Half a minute later came two more snaps in quick succession; again he stopped, looked around, even glanced upwards to see if a bird or animal was hiding in the treetops above and rustling branches, but he was alone, and there was no way that the noise could have been down to him. Struggling to calm himself, Louis took a deep breath and went to step forwards, but something big and black and devoid of substance flashed past in his peripheral vision, making him jerk away in horror.

After that, he quickly disintegrated into panic, completely unwarranted, but nonetheless crippling. Forgetting his vow to stay calm, he started to run, sprinting as fast as he could away from whatever it was he had seen in the corner of his eye. His heart felt like it might explode, pounding a disjointed rhythm against the inside of his chest; his feet ached and prickled with every step from the impact of the leaves and pine needles underneath his toes; his head ached, but he didn’t stop running. Louis ran as if for his life, when usually he would have been laughing at himself for his paranoia – there was something that spurred him into movement, some deep rooted primal instinct screaming at him that there was something horribly, profoundly  _wrong_ about this.

But in spite of the speed with which he ran, the purposefulness with which he headed towards what appeared to be a spot of light that would surely indicate some form of escape, he never seemed to get any closer to it – if anything, he was getting further away. How was that possible, when he was sprinting at top speed towards it? His breath ran out, and he allowed himself a brief pause, bent double, panting frantically. At his feet was a huge, convoluted root coated with lichen. Louis’ next breath caught in his throat and he nearly choked on it when he realised he recognized it; he’d narrowly missed tripping over it a few minutes ago.

Turning around, he looked at the wood behind him, and all around him, and realised with a lurch of nausea something that he hadn’t noticed whilst running, when all the bracken and trees merged into a green blur, but the subtleties of which became clear when he paused and got a better look at all of it: all the plants and rocks and trees around him were horribly familiar. He’d been running in circles for the past ten minutes.

Another snap came from directly behind him, loud as a gunshot, and Louis whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut, his whole body tensing. Trembling, he stood perfectly still, hoping and praying, begging someone to intervene – but then an icy cold breeze ghosted across the back of his neck, and that was too much for  _anyone_ to bear.

Louis whirled around, his mouth falling open, and he was faced with an enormous figure. It was at least a foot taller than him, dressed all in black, although exactly what form of garment it was wearing was indistinguishable, since it constantly wavered and shifted as if blown by the breeze, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind. It appeared to be wearing long, flowing robes of shadows, and had no recognizable face, just a head, like someone had drawn the outline and erased all of the features. Trying to stare up at the blank mask of its visage gave Louis a horrible headache, something aching behind his eyes. Trembling all over, Louis gaped at it in utter revulsion, his mouth hanging open.

The figure lifted what appeared to be a long, stick thin hand and pointed at him, jabbing him squarely in the chest.

That was when he started screaming, his throat rasping, but although he could hear every low breath the creature took, he couldn’t hear his own cries. He tried with all his might to turn and flee, although he didn’t believe it would do him an ounce of good, feeling what seemed to be an irrepressible urge to run away from the monstrosity, but his feet felt rooted in place. His hands wouldn’t move. Every shuddering breath he took failed to move his chest an inch. Paralysed inside his own body, Louis screamed and screamed, the silence surrounding him feeling like the loudest thing he’d ever heard, and the creature tilted its head like it was listening, although how could it, with no ears?

It slowly leaned in like it was going to kiss him, bowing its blank face towards him and placing its awful hands gently on his shoulders, and if Louis had been panicking before, now he was hysterical. He howled so hard that he thought he might be sick, and he longed to struggle and try to throw its grip off, but he couldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t look away, it was getting closer and closer, its blank visage was almost touching his cheek, his panic was rising and rising until he thought he might burst into tears –

It put a long finger over the place where its mouth should have been, as if it were shushing him.

**~*~**

Louis woke up with his mouth wide open and the horrible sound of his own screams bouncing off the walls. He jerked upright in bed, cutting off the awful sounds he was making with a hand over his mouth, and then looked frantically around the darkened room, taking in frantic gulps of air like he’d never breathed before in his life. Fumbling frantically for his phone on the bedside table, he turned it on and the room was lit up with a sickly bluish glow that refracted off everything in the room and, if anything, made it look even more creepy than it had in the dark. Louis hastily scrambled out of bed and ran across the room, slamming his hand down on the light switch so that the room was flooded with light; it made him screw his eyes up in pain, but the relief it brought him with the illumination overshadowed his discomfort.

For a few seconds, he stood still, breathing deeply in and out – then, his stomach gave a horrible, unexpected lurch. It was a familiar sensation, but not one which he particularly wished to experience – the last time he’d been on the verge of throwing up, it was at a New Years’ party and his desire to avoid total humiliation by splattering the contents of his stomach onto the floor of the shiny mock-Tudor house the party was being held at had been enough of a deterrent for him to manage to keep from vomiting. Today, he had no such deterrent – not to mention that his stomach felt like it was turning itself inside out and churning with all the force of an ocean. Clapping a hand over his mouth, Louis made a frantic dash for the bathroom, staggered in, then dropped clumsily to his knees and grabbed the toilet bowl for support as he violently threw up.

His stomach was churning as if someone was stirring his insides up with an enormous wooden spoon; his vision flickered, he wondered if he might pass out. Groaning, he coughed and spluttered weakly, trying to force his stomach into obedience so that he could stop, but it didn’t seem to be paying much attention.

It felt like hours that he knelt over that toilet, tears in his eyes, choking and gagging and moaning disgustingly, and it was only when his stomach was left completely empty and he was left dry-heaving disgustingly over the toilet bowl that he dared to peel himself off the floor.

He bent over the sink, took several deep breaths and then started chugging water straight from the tap, drinking it almost with desperation as he tried to wash the vile taste from his mouth and clear his head a little. It seemed to help – at first. His mouth began to taste less bitter, cooler; his head began to pound a little less intensely. By the time he’d stretched his stomach to its limits and felt bloated with liquid almost to the point where he expected water to begin trickling out of his ears, he was reasonably certain that the odd bout of crippling nausea which had cropped up out of nowhere had vanished just as suddenly as it had come.

Shrugging, Louis straightened up, waited cautiously for a few seconds, then gave a satisfied nod and began walking out of the bathroom.

His legs collapsed from underneath him, sending him crashing to the ground with a yelp of shock which was quickly followed by a swearword hissed from between his teeth. He slammed into the ground, narrowly missing getting a face full of floor and only just succeeding in interrupting his fall with his hands, which smacked against the linoleum mere seconds before he did. Shocked, he gasped – and then his stomach gave another horrible lurch and he threw up again, this time all over the floor.

Rolling away from the mess, Louis buried his face in his hands and groaned. By the looks of it, it was going to be a long night.

**~*~**

Louis was slumped over the table in the coffee shop with his cheek flat against the surface and his half empty coffee mug a safe distance away from his head, doing his best not to groan out loud and letting the sound of instant coffee machines at work, people chattering and clinking spoons wash soothingly over him. He kind of wanted to crawl under the table and fall asleep, but his eyes were aching almost as much as his head and throat and he was in the kind of uncomfortable place between desperately wanting to fall asleep and not quite being able to. He figured he’d just lie there for a while and feel sorry for himself. It seemed like a good plan to him.

Something thudded down into the table with an ominous sloshing sound mere inches away from his head and he jerked, yelping, away from it, only to find that a wickedly grinning Niall was standing over him, fingers still curled around the coffee cup he’d just slammed down onto the table. Miraculously, it didn’t seem to have spilt. 

“Morning, sunshine,” Niall greeted him, “rough night? You look pretty wrecked.” He took the seat opposite Louis and slurped his coffee in a way which Louis liked to think of as being obnoxiously loud.

As usual, he looked far too cheerful for Louis’ liking, especially when Louis was feeling quite so spectacularly rubbish, so Louis very unenthusiastically gave him the finger and then slumped back to the coffee table with a groan.

“Someone’s pissy this morning. What crawled up  _your_ arse and died?” Niall asked, raising an eyebrow.

In spite of himself, Louis laughed a little bit at that, which did nothing to improve his pounding headache but perhaps was a slight improvement to his vile mood. His mouth twitched into a small smile at the somewhat disgusting mental image that question had provoked, and he wearily rubbed his forehead before he hauled himself into a sitting position and reassumed his sour expression. “That crappy movie you made me watch gave me nightmares,” he said, “and god knows why, because it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, and the least scary thing ever. Then when I woke up at god-knows-what-o’clock after being chased around some weird silent woods in my dreams by old Slendy, I started puking my guts up and I still can’t keep down solids, so if I were you I’d back up a little bit before I finish this, because if it starts coming back up then I won’t hesitate in throwing up all over you, princess. You nearly poured that coffee all over me.”

“So you’re sick  _and_ sleep-deprived? Oh dear. You’re going to be a barrel of laughs today.”

“Tell me about it,” muttered Louis grimly. “Just be thankful I’m not blaming you for the nausea, too, although if I find out you spiked my popcorn, there’ll be hell to pay. You’re looking disgustingly cheerful this morning; what’s happened to you? Even  _you’re_  not usually this perky before eleven.”

With a grin, Niall stretched, sipped some more coffee, put a ridiculous amount of extra sugar in it, blew on it, and continued fussing almost obsessively over his drink with an incredibly smug expression while Louis surveyed his own mug and deliberated over whether pouring his own lukewarm drink over Niall’s head might make him hurry up and talk.

“Out with it, or you’ll be wearing this.” He gestured in a vaguely threatening manner at his cup.

“I met this girl at the DVD rental store, when I was taking  _Slenderman_ back. She’s gorgeous and really cool and she has great taste in movies –”

“In that case, you haven’t got a chance. You’re an ugly sod and a total nerd and your taste in movies is appalling.” Laughing at his expression, Louis hit him lightly on the arm. “Gotcha. I’m kidding, you know that. Come on, what’s she like? Tell me  _properly._ ”

“She’s got lots of hair – bright red, you know, like,  _post-box._ That kind of red.It should look ridiculous, but it doesn’t. She’s pale and she has a lot of freckles and these big brown eyes, and obviously she isn’t a natural redhead, but who cares about that? We got talking about the film because I was returning it and she wanted to take it out again, and it was totally cool, she knew loads about how they did the effects and all that, and then we went out and bought a burger on the arcade, and we played arcade games until we both ran out of change and she beat me  _eight times._ ” Niall raised his eyebrows and nodded decisively. “You know how much time I spend on those things. She beat my high score, almost  _tripled_ it. She was  _good._ ”

“You didn’t drool on her shirt, did you?”

Niall glowered at him.

“It’s a fair question, you’re, uh, kind of dribbling a little bit right now. Just –” Louis tapped the corner of his mouth.

Blushing, Niall swiped at his own mouth with embarrassment. “Whatever. Anyway, she gave me her number and we’re meeting up Tuesday night, going to catch that new thriller movie, you know the one with the mad axe-man? Totally cool. She suggested it, how often do girls suggest something like that? She’s like a girl version of me, only…a girl…” Appearing to lose the thread of his sentence, Niall continued, “her name’s Charlotte, anyway, and her favourite colour is peach but she can’t wear it because it clashes with her hair, and her favourite food is spaghetti, and she likes bowling and her grandma used to take her ghost-hunting before she kicked the bucket –”

Louis snorted at the old-fashioned colloquialism.  _Kicked the bucket. Nice. You’ve been hanging out too much with my mother._

“ – and this one time, they did a séance, and they were talking to this dead girl, and they must have made the spirit angry somehow because this vase flew off the table and it  _broke._ ” Eyes shining, Niall looked like he was so excited he might burst, his cheeks bright pink. It was very sweet, in an exhausting kind of way. Louis wasn’t really in the mood for Niall’s overwhelming enthusiasm.

“That’s really cool, Niall.”

“Yeah,” agreed Niall, “only I need you to help me pick an outfit out for Tuesday, because you’re better at that kind of stuff than I am, and I want to borrow that shirt, the one with the picture of the bloody skull on it.”

“The one you bought me for Christmas last year that I’ve never worn and you borrow off me every other week?”

“That’s the one.”

“You might as well keep it. You know I’ll never wear it, I told you that when you were buying it.”

“Nah, I couldn’t do that, it’s yours,” Niall said generously, although his kindness was somewhat misguided and Louis kind of wished the blond would take the hideous shirt off his hands, because he absolutely hated it. “You’ll help me out with the rest of my outfit though, yeah?”

“Sure,” Louis said wearily, “whatever. Oh, and I need you to come round later, before I forget. My TV’s on the blink, and since you were the last person to touch it, you’re going to fix it.”

With his polystyrene coffee cup halfway to his lips, seeming to remember the drink that he’d forsaken whilst rambling on about next week’s date, Niall paused, his forehead furrowing. “Why, what’s up with it?”

“The channels keep changing by themselves; it’s doing my head in. No, I  _wasn’t_ sitting on the remote,” he said sharply before Niall could interrupt, “it was in my hand the whole time. The stupid thing just kept switching itself on and off and skipping through every channel there is at the speed of light, it was doing my head in.”

“Oooh!” said Niall excitedly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape. “That’s so cool! That’s just like what happened on the mo –” he abruptly cut himself off and the colour drained from his face like someone had pulled the plug on his bloodstream and all of his blood was leaking out. Louis raised an eyebrow at him, but Niall didn’t seem to notice; his gaze had turned glassy and he looked stunned. “What did you just say? Not just about the TV; all of it, start again from the beginning,” he demanded.

“I said the channels on my TV keep changing themselves, I had some crazy dream about the Slenderman chasing me through some creepy silent forest – and let me tell you, in my dream he was actually  _scary_ , not like that embarrassing CGI mess on your movie – and then I woke up and started throwing up everywhere, and I’m blaming it all on  _you._ …You’re not going to throw up too, are you? You’ve gone kind of…grey.”

“Holy shit,” Niall breathed. “Oh my god.”

“What? Do I have a milk moustache or something? Is there someone hot behind me?” Louis ran a hand through his hair.

“Were you not paying attention to the movie at all?”

“Of course I was. It was hilarious. I never took my eyes off it; it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in my life. Wait, what should I have been looking for? It wasn’t one of your dodgy pirate copies, was it? Niall, if you’ve fucked up my TV with your stolen DVDs, I’m going to kill you.”

“It wasn’t a pirate copy!” Niall yelped almost hysterically, “shut up about the bloody movie! In fact, don’t. Think back to it. God, you weren’t watching it at all, it’s all adding up and this is absolutely ridiculous. Jesus. Oh my god, Louis.  _Think about the signs._ Dreaming about Slenderman. Technology going all weird. Vomiting. Louis! He’s  _coming for you_.”

Louis missed a beat, and then he burst out laughing. It was just what he needed, to properly, uproariously laugh, and it felt ridiculously good – he laughed at the horror-struck expression on Niall’s face, and then he laughed some more, and when Niall tried to stop him from laughing and impress the apparent seriousness of the situation upon him, he laughed even harder. He had a stomach ache and tears in his eyes by the time he managed to calm himself down enough to stop, and he shook his head amusedly as he went to take another sip of coffee.

“You should see your face! I thought you were going to pass out on me there. You’re ridiculous. They shouldn’t let people like you buy horror movies; you take them  _way_ too seriously.  _‘He’s coming for you’!_ My God, you’re full of it. Bless.”

“What are you  _laughing_ at?” Niall hissed. “Are you insane? Don’t you understand? The Slenderman is coming for you! He’s going to murder you in your bed! You’re going to go crazy and bite someone’s head off! He’s  _coming_!”

“Niall, it’s a  _movie._ And it’s not even a good one. Slenderman isn’t real, it’s just a game and a rubbish film and another story to tell cocky ten-year-olds at night to try and scare some of the sass out of them. You really need to stop taking these things so seriously, it’s not healthy.”

Stubbornly, Niall insisted, “There’ve been sightings. Photos, documented appearances, people have  _seen_ him. He’s real!”

“If Slenderman is real, then I’m the tooth fairy. You see a wand or a pair of wings here? It’s cute that you believe in that crap, but I’m telling you, the movie industry was  _made_ for people like you. They really saw you coming. Next they’ll be selling you some gizmo that’s supposed to suck up ghosts that’s really a hand-held vacuum cleaner with fairy-lights and stickers on it, and it won’t even do much good for vacuuming. Oh, wait.” Louis paused and allowed the somewhat embarrassing memory to settle in of a phase Niall went through where he was convinced there was a ghost in his flat and spent weeks living in terror, sleeping on Louis’ floor and creeping into his own flat once a week for clean clothes or to collect his homework. It had turned out that after Niall spent almost ninety pounds on ‘ghost-hunting equipment’ that Niall’s ‘ghost’ was the boiler that needed replacing, and Louis never intended to let him forget it.

“That was different,” Niall insisted, “ _that_ was a scam. This could be legit, you might be Slenderman’s next victim! He’s the predator, you’re his prey…we should do some research, figure out how to repel him, there must be something we can do –”

“I’m not stringing garlic round my neck or drawing satanic symbols on my front door to protect myself from a monster that doesn’t even exist,” Louis said firmly, “we got into enough trouble last time, and I never realised you were serious about the caretaker being a vampire. Which, might I remind you, he _wasn’t._  You’re paranoid and you believe in way too many things, and this time I’m not letting you rope me into any of your craziness. Save that for Charlotte – I only hope she knows what she’s getting herself into.”

Pushing his chair back from the table, Niall grabbed Louis by the arm. “Right. If you won’t see sense, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to open your eyes. I know you think I’m crazy, but some of these things exist. Some nightmares are real. Dreaming about Slenderman never ends well. Come on.” He jerked Louis’ arm and Louis found himself being unceremoniously yanked out of his chair and all of a sudden they were well on their way to the exit, much to Louis’ surprise.

“Where the hell are we going?” Louis almost knocked his coffee over as he hastily attempted to swipe it and down it before Niall hauled him right out of the cafe. It was lucky that it was almost cold by that time; otherwise he would have burned his mouth with the haste with which he gulped it down.

“Humour me?” pleaded Niall.

It wasn’t as if Louis really had much choice in the matter. He stumbled into the frigid morning air with Niall’s grip on his wrist not at all gentle, and the blond determinedly started pulling him down the street. Confused, Louis allowed himself to be unceremoniously dragged down the road and it took him a few minutes to realize that they were headed towards one of Niall’s favourite haunts – the local internet cafe, where he liked to meet up with all of his internet conspiracy buddies and discuss sci-fi and horror films and come up with crazy schemes to hunt ghosts and demons that none of them would ever follow through because they were too fearful of the repercussions of doing so.

They burst dramatically through the door, the little bell tinkling manically, and everyone in the room ripped their gazes from their computer screens and turned around to stare at them, all moving practically as one. Louis found himself faced by an abundance of spotty complexions, computer-screen tans (aka pasty white faces) and either chin-length or slicked back hair, and shook his head slowly – it was hard to try not to support the stigma of a typical conspiracy theory nerd when there were at least thirty examples of the perfect stereotype sitting right in front of him.

The majority of them seemed to recognize Niall, raising their hands and greeting him with jerky, robotic waves before turning back to their computer screens. Louis bit his lip to hold back a laugh, wishing some of them would speak so that he could see if they sounded as robotic as they looked. The closest guy to him, a kid so skinny you could get a paper-cut off him, with round jam-jar glasses and a greasy bowl cut, looked like he had all the characteristics and personality traits of a Dalek. Although perhaps without the fondness for genocide.

Grave and serious, Niall frogmarched Louis to an empty computer at the back of the room, sat him down and logged on with the speed of someone accustomed to the process, sparing a jerky nod for the shop owner, who didn’t bother ambling over to demand payment – clearly he relied on Niall to pay once he was done.

“You want anything, boys?” he called across the room in a flat, nasal monotone. “Pepsi? A doughnut?”

“Ooh, I could  _murder_ another coffee,” Louis began excitedly, but Niall sternly silenced him with a look.

“No thanks, Todd. This isn’t a recreational visit. We’ve got urgent business to attend to.”

Louis pouted, but Niall ignored him, already tapping something into Google with practiced ease. He came up with a long list of search results, scanned them as if he knew exactly what he was looking for, and then selected a website. A jet black page covered in coils of animated mist and with several textbook spooky pictures of trees with no leaves and mysterious shadows lurking in the background greeted them, and Louis examined it with momentary interest – though he feigned boredom, stifling a yawn behind his hand that was only half fake; he had been awake and vomiting half the night.

Frowning, Niall scrolled down the page, apparently searching for a specific section, before he made a small sound of triumph and pointed at a list of bullet-points in looping white font, hard to make out and evidently mostly for show. Louis’ eyes narrowed as he squinted at the screen, trying to make out some of the writing, which apparently Niall was deciphering without a problem. Louis honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d spent hours on this obscure little website, researching this mythical creature without a moment of boredom or scepticism. Niall tended to do odd things like that in his spare time. A cursory glance around the room at the backs of the heads of the rest of the occupants of the cafe, a large majority of them seemed to share his fascination, poring over similar weird sites or, in the case of a few of them, online role-playing games.

“Look,” Niall hissed, stabbing at the screen with his index finger. “Signs that Slenderman is coming for you, right? Look at this – problems with technology. Weird energy fluctuations, interference, all the signals going haywire. There’s something about his genetics that makes everything go crazy. All the electrical stuff kicks off. Vomiting – that’s your body reacting to him, trying to warn you, you see? And – and the dreams, too, and it all fits, Jesus Christ Louis, Slenderman’s after you!”

There was a long silence as Louis reread the points Niall had indicated to him, his eyes also flickering quickly over several of the other apparent symptoms of Slenderman-related doom: diarrhoea, memory loss, coughing up blood, drawing some weird symbol everywhere, all very pleasant stuff. Then, to Niall’s astonishment, a smile started creeping across Louis’ face. It grew wider and wider, until he was full-on grinning, showing all his teeth and looking genuinely amused.

“Oh, I get you,” he said, grinning. “Well done. Nice bit of acting, I’ll admit you had me going there for a second.”

Niall blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“I have to hand it to you, it was all very good. Nicely planned. Cool trick with the TV, by the way – I’m assuming you configured another remote to work my telly, or tampered with mine, right? Either way, it was a neat trick. But the vomiting thing was a lucky guess, right?”

The blond started shaking his head frantically, and Louis frowned.

“Did you put something in my popcorn? For the sake of a practical joke, that’s pretty excessive. Or is there just a bug going round and you got lucky?”

“No,” Niall insisted, “Louis, this wasn’t me!”

“Okay, Niall, I get it. I can take a joke, but I’m not  _completely_ gullible – I won’t fall for the same trick twice. I’d quit while you’re ahead – if it makes you happy, I’ll even let you tell people that you tricked me into thinking that there was some weird supernatural shit going on in my house.”

“Please listen to me, Louis, this isn’t some dumb practical joke,” Niall pleaded, “you know how seriously I take this stuff, would I really joke about this?”

“Yeah, I  _do_ know how seriously you take this stuff – far  _too_ seriously. You got me, I’ll admit it. That thing with the TV left me pretty freaked. But you need to learn when a joke’s gone too far, and this is seriously close to crossing the line. Don’t ruin it.”

“This isn’t a joke! None of this was down to me, Lou, none of it – something’s wrong here. I think you’re in danger, please, you have to take me seriously!”

“Listen, if this is your idea of a funny joke, it’s really pathetic and childish. Yeah, it was funny at first, but if you won’t let it go it’s going to become dumb really quickly. We aren’t twelve year olds, Niall. Just admit that it’s all a dumb wind-up and we’ll leave it at that, yeah?”

Niall looked him in the eyes and said firmly, with absolute conviction, “This is not a joke, it’s a very serious matter. You’re in danger, Louis. Some creepy supernatural entity is stalking you and he’s not gonna stop until he’s – until he’s done whatever it is he does!”

“Chased me round a creepy abandoned house, killed all my family and friends and then crushed himself underneath a falling grandfather clock?” asked Louis with one eyebrow raised, his tone loaded with scepticism.

“I don’t know, nobody knows, but Lou, you shouldn’t ignore this. We should ask around, someone’s gotta have some idea of what to do, some way you can evade him, there has to be some way of protecting yourself from him –” Niall went off on a tangent, babbling wildly about protective sigils and rituals to ward off spirits, with wide eyes and a kind of earnestness which showed Louis that he was completely serious – something that the brunette absolutely refused to accept. There had to be some kind of link between this stupid website, his TV going on the blink and his sudden nausea, and he was adamant that Niall had something to do with it.

“You’re crazy,” he said coldly, shoving his chair back with a grating squeal. He got to his feet. “Why don’t you head on down to the doctors’, get yourself a little bottle of happy pills, take however many you need to sort your fucking crazy mind out and get back to me when you actually know the difference between real life and a shitty, low-budget Hollywood movie?”

Scowling, he stormed out of the cafe without looking back, fists clenched and an expression darker than storm clouds hanging over him, as if the heavens were about to open above his head. Niall leapt out of his chair and tried to follow, although a low, disapproving tut from  Todd the cafe owner prevented him from leaving; he hadn’t paid for his internet usage yet. It didn’t, however, prevent him from poking his head out of the front door and protesting at the top of his voice down the street for all to hear,

“You’re making a mistake, Louis! I know about this stuff; I can help you!”

“Fuck you,” yelled Louis without turning around, and the blond was left staring after him, disheartened and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, knowing that he’d approached this all wrong and that now, no matter how scared he was, Louis would determinedly oppose him and reject any further suggestions of the existence of the entity of Slenderman just to prove a point. Swearing quietly, Niall ducked back into the shop and headed back to his computer, determined to do as much research as he could so that even if Louis didn’t believe he needed protecting, at least one of them would be equipped with the know-how to help him if the need arose.

The other internet users all robotically shook their heads at Louis’ scepticism and the volume of his voice when he’d yelled at Niall, then went back to their browsing without once breaking the silence.


	4. Chapter 4

Louis stopped off at the local DIY shop on the way home after his spat with Niall. His flat could do with a lick of paint anyway and after the day he’d had and the state his head was in, he figured throwing some paint around might be sort of therapeutic.

He got home, made himself another cup of tea – since becoming a student, buying tea had become his top priority; he as starting to feel like he was living on it – and sat down at his kitchen table with a sharpie in one hand, doodling on his folder. Anger clouded his thoughts like fog rolling across the surface of his mind and his pen scrawled endlessly, seemingly of its own accord. He paid no attention to what he was doing; probably etching deep, angry lines onto the scarlet cardboard. So he was going to have to buy himself a new folder, too – brilliant. More expense. Just what he needed.

He glared at his tea, as if it were to blame for the fact that his conspiracy theorist, nutjob best friend had finally gone totally, irreversibly crazy. As if it were to blame for the fact that aforementioned crazy conspiracy theorist best friend was making a lot more sense in his crazy ramblings than he should have been.

As if it were to blame for the fact that Louis was almost inclined to believe him.

 _Stop it,_  he told himself firmly, halfway getting to his feet as if he could storm dramatically away from his own awry thoughts like he had stormed away from Niall.  _He’s crazy. And so are you if you pay him any mind._

 _I’m not crazy,_  he argued.

 _Sure you aren’t,_  the more annoying voice in his head chimed in slyly.  _Because sane people get into arguments inside their own head, with themselves,_ all  _the time._

 _Maybe not, but at least sane people_ know  _it’s all inside their own head._

Louis decided to end the conversation right there. It was remarkable how irritating his subconscious could be, especially in such a short space of time. He sincerely hoped that wasn’t a reflection of the effect his conscious self had on people as well.

And he was  _still_  drawing on that damn folder.

Irked, he looked down, half expecting to see a transcript of his conversation with himself that he’d absently copied down, out of force of habit; copying down so many notes from lectures meant that it was almost second nature to him to write down what people were saying if he had paper in front of him and a pen in his hand. Instead, he found a symbol. A multitude of identical symbols, as a matter of fact, all overlapping and intertwining, of various sizes and proportions, but all unmistakeably the same. The designs he’d inked all over his folder, again and again and again and again without even realising he was doing it, was a circle with a cross through it.

Unbidden, as if eager to prove just how aggravating it could really be, his subconscious helpfully dredged up a memory of the website Niall had shown him earlier, specifically the section that he had paid most attention to: the signs that Slenderman was coming for you.

Right underneath  _“sickness and diarrhoea”_  had been  _“drawing ‘the sign’ – a circle with a cross drawn through the middle.”_

“Okay, stop right there!” Louis snapped, knocking the folder onto the floor in a rage. He snatched up his lukewarm tea, stomped into the kitchen and hurled the half-empty mug so hard into the sink that it broke.

Breathing heavily, he bent over the sink. He felt really,  _really_  unsettled – clearly the stupid movie had really gotten to him for some reason, along with Niall’s insistence that this whole ridiculous Slenderman thing was all very much real. It had to be the stress taking its toll, surely? He was exhausted after all, and sick.. Looking numbly down at the shards of mud in the sink, lying pathetically in a pool of tea that was rapidly tricking down the drain, it looked like the broken mug was slowly drowning in its own caffeinated blood.

Such metaphors  _really_  weren’t helping Louis sort his head out any faster.

 

Taking deep breaths, he buried his face in his hands, trying to calm himself. For God’s sake, he was worse than Niall! Jumping at shadows and freaking out over coincidences….it was all so stupid! He was a sensible, rational person! He didn’t  _believe_  in any of this crap!

Still, it was hard trying to impress this upon himself when even as he repeated this mantra to himself, he was also staring into the kitchen window, keeping an eye fixated on the reflection of the wide open kitchen door to make sure nothing came through it.

He apprehensively scanned his own face reflected back at him, searching for even the slightest hint of insanity in his eyes. Nothing became immediately apparent to him. Gripping the sink with both white-knuckled hands, eyes wide like saucers of pale blue ink, he looked scared out of his wits, but not in the least bit crazy. This thought was immensely comforting to him until he remembered reading somewhere that one of the biggest indicators of insanity was an inability to see, or refusal to accept, that you were mad. Louis’ throat all of a sudden was as dry and raspy as sandpaper. He anxiously took another look at himself; he wasn’t dribbling, or muttering to himself, or rocking back and forth in agitation or doing anything that the stereotypical mentally unstable person was prone to doing. The only voice he could hear was his own. And if this was a hallucination, it was an extremely mundane and boring one.

A shrill sound rent the air, shattering the quiet like a mirror bursting into a thousand jagged fragments. Louis flinched, whirling around to face the door and frantically grabbing at the worktop behind him without turning around to try and lay his hands on some sort of weapon. His fingers encountered the handle of something slim and metal; triumphantly, Louis whipped it out in front of him, brandishing it like a tiny sword, only to discover that the weapon he had at his disposal was in fact a small spoon.

Oh, and the noise that had caused him to panic was the phone.

Louis burst out laughing, although he wasn’t sure whether it was nervous laugher or genuine amusement spilling shakily from between his lips. Tossing the spoon into the sink, he shook his head at his own idiocy and began plucking shards of the ruined mug out of the sink, careful not to slice his fingers on any of the sharper edges. He made not move to go and answer the phone – let it ring! He was grateful to the caller who had succeeded in snapping him out of his awful reverie, but not grateful enough to answer the telemarketer who would inevitably be on the other end of the line.

His answering machine clicked, politely rattling off a pre-recorded message promising to get back to the caller (which was about as sincere as Louis’ ‘thank you’s to relatives who bought him socks for Christmas) and a familiar warm Irish accent spilled into the room, filling it with comforting heat like a log fire.

“Hey, Louis, it’s Niall,” he was greeted.

Louis snorted angrily, gratitude instantly evaporating. Niall had driven him uncomfortably close to the parameters of his sanity with his appalling choice of movie and refusal to accept a coincidence for what it was. If he wanted Louis to forgive him, Louis would accept a gesture of apology no less than having the blond grovelling on the floor in front of him, surrounded by several gifts of food and alcohol as a peace offering. And he’d have to buy Louis another coffee to replace all the cups that Louis had wasted since this dumb Slenderman thing had started. That was reasonable, right?

“I know you’re probably mad at me…”

“Too right,” Louis muttered.

“But I think I know a way we can sort this out. I’ve been talking to Charlotte –”

Interfering Charlotte. Know-it-all Charlotte. Supposed-expert-on-the-best-friend-of-a-guy-she-barely-knew Charlotte. Louis took a sudden and instant dislike to Charlotte.

“ – and she reckons you’re just too scared to accept that I’m right. Which is understandable. But I can _help_  you, Louis,” Niall insisted earnestly, “so I’m going to prove it to you. I’ve managed to get hold of this psychic, right –”

“Oh, give it a  _rest_ , Niall,” Louis muttered contemptuously,. Storming across into the living room and unplugging the phone, stopping Niall’s excited monologue in its tracks. Psychics? Proof?  _more_  people trying to mess with his head?  _So_  not what he needed right now. His overactive imagination needed _suppressing_ , not fuelling with more insane ramblings!

Louis was halfway over the threshold of his kitchen when he tripped over the can of paint he’d left there and fell over so hard that he wouldn’t have been surprised to have gone straight through the floorboards and plummeted right down inside the foundations of the house. Suffice to say, the kind of day he was having, it wouldn’t have struck him as particularly odd. It was just how his luck seemed to be going lately. And he didn’t think he’d have bothered trying to get back up again.

For a few minutes, he allowed himself the luxury of lying face down on the linoleum and moping, revelling in the chance to wallow uninterrupted in self-pity. It was immensely satisfying, but not very productive. Eventually, he grumpily picked himself up off the floor, found a pile of old newspapers which he haphazardly littered the floor with and began slathering aggressively red paint all over the dingy off-white walls. He was tired of tentative colours; dull white and boiled cream and dull beige. It was dragging him down, making him dreary and twitchy and nervous. Brightness was the key! As he splashed, he pretended it was the blood of one of his more obnoxious university lecturers (the somewhat alarming shade of red was rather helpful in helping him visualize it, actually). It was infantile, but it worked wonders on cheering him up.

Louis lost all track of time. Perhaps painting was even more soothing than he’d initially realised. Perhaps his brain, well-trained at zoning out on boring lectures, had shut down at the first sight of monotony. Perhaps the batteries in all the clocks in his house were simultaneously running low and the clocks had all slowed to an alarming rate, lulling him into believing that less time had elapsed. Whatever the reason, Louis resurfaced from his hazy trance almost an hour and a half later feeling like scarcely ten minutes had passed, with an ache in his arm and half-dried paint trickling down his wrist like bloodstains, so that he looked for all the world like he might well have committed that vicious, violent murder he’d been fantasizing about.

He’d killed some time, even if he hadn’t killed his maths tutor. Surprised by the elapse of time, he abandoned the paint and brush on the floor and headed off to have a shower, pleased by his handiwork. He didn’t, however, glance back at it – he was fairly sure he’d have done a crap job and he wanted to hang onto his newly peaceful mood for as long as he could.

                                                                                                 ~*~

By far the frustrating thing about humans, he had long since decided, - and oh, there were a  _lot_ of frustrating things about humans – was their infuriating tendency to obstinately ignore things which were being waved right underneath their noses.

It wasn’t as if he’d  _intentionally_ made the boy ill, or caused him to panic. When he’d stepped into Louis’ dream, comforting him had been all that was on his mind. He supposed it would help if he could communicate as they did, tongues curling around syllables and lips framing letters which apparently conveyed meanings to them far more clearly than his own simple transmission of thoughts and emotions did – but it took him far too long to find his words, even simple ones. Until he’d really grasped their clumsy way of communing, it really was pointless to try and use it to get his message across, due to the complexity of it. Maybe he’d practice.

But where had this desire come from all of a sudden? To emulate the humans, after he’d long since given up on any semblance of humanity? No matter how hard he tried, he could not  _be_ one of them. Trying only brought him misery and frustration, and to them, panic – and plenty of it. So he’d abandoned the attempt, resigned himself to being Something Else, and he wasn’t  _happy_ – but he was content. Until this painfully human boy came along, with his caramel hair and his jewel-blue eyes and his wicked little laugh that made his heart race in ways he’d never expected it could. He wanted to touch his smooth skin and to be close to him in a way that no human had ever appealed to him. Of course, his loneliness made him crave human contact of any sort, eating away at him like a monstrous maggot and poisoning him with misery so that he felt like if he didn’t feel someone’s skin underneath his fingertips as proof that he wasn’t the only living, breathing being on the planet then he would be torn to shreds with the force of the need reverberating through him, to which he’d never once given in. But Louis? Louis was different. Not touching Louis was ten thousand times worse than that.

The fear he inspired in those he visited was by no means intentional; as a matter of fact, he hated it. Frightening people had never been something he did on purpose, always a mere unfortunate side-effect of his presence, so incomprehensible to the humans that it terrified them. He’d been doing this for so long that he knew what reactions to expect – fear, anger, denial, confusion. So far, Louis had shown signs of all of these. It was quite disappointing, really. It was quite strange for him to have become quite so absorbed with a human who, so far, had proven himself to be perfectly ordinary. Yet there must have been  _something_ special about him, something he couldn’t quite put his long finger on.

He’d tried to communicate with Louis, gently stirring at the surface of his consciousness until the stormy waters had parted, and whilst the boy was distracted by his angry mental tirade, he hadn’t been paying much attention to what his hands were doing. It had been all too easy to guide him, having him etch a simple sigil – a circle with a cross through it – into the folder he’d been doodling on. It was his calling card, in a way. The circle represented being whole. The cross was supposed to be two paths crossing as two people met and bonded. (It also sort of had a link to the whole “star-crossed lovers” thing, because he was kind of soppy like that.) The finished mark was supposed to be a message, his wordless explanation to the lonely humans that he was their salvation, come to find their missing piece. He would bring them their soul-mate and make them whole.

Unfortunately, the concept was either too complicated for the humans to grasp, or too alarming to them for them to try – they never seemed to get it. So far, Louis was no exception.

But patience, and lots of it, was one of his few virtues, so he tried again when the first attempt ended in disaster. Maybe bigger was better. Maybe Louis just needed time, or another, more obvious hint. He already had an idea of how to give him one. He was  _sure_ Louis was different.

He  _wanted_ him to be different.

However, he would admit to one thing; Louis was definitely a challenge. Ever since he’d been old enough and wise enough to stop being selfish with his gifts, he’d been pulling people out of the darkness, finding their soul mates for them and bringing them together as seamlessly as you could wish. It was an art that came laughably easily to him now. All he had to do was listen. Souls made a sound; a melody, a kind of song, but an unfinished one. The trick was to search everywhere, listen to everyone, and find the person whose soul sang the missing piece of the melody. And it should have been so, so easy; Louis’ song was sweet, sad and yet happy in places, and it  _ached._ It was so beautiful that it made him tremble, and it was aggravatingly familiar, like he’d hear something similar somewhere before but couldn’t quite seem to think of where. Still, he’d been distracted of late. He didn’t seem to be thinking clearly about anything these days.

However, one thing that  _was_ still clear to him was the feeling that Louis’ soul-mate would  _not_ be easy to find.

                                                                ~*~

Louis got out of the shower scrubbed, fresh and feeling far more pleasant than he had ever since watching that stupid movie. It was weird to think that it had been nearly a week since he’d first seen it – since watching the movie on the Saturday night, having awful dreams about Slenderman on the Wednesday night, and now Friday was only eight or nine hours away, and it was still having an effect on him. Still, he had no intention of paying it any more attention; he felt calm, now, and well ready to put the whole stupid thing behind him – and he’d even stop ignoring Niall, as long as he agreed to stop going on about it all. Stretching and rumpling his damp hair up at the back, Louis padded through to the kitchen in his loose grey tracksuit bottoms and worn navy t-shirt, bare feet noiseless on the cool tiles, and began acquainting himself with his other best friend since he’d started university: tea.

Tea-making was somewhat of a talent of his, and by the time he’d brewed the perfect cup of tea, Louis felt pretty satisfied with himself. He lounged against the unit, sipping it and enjoying the quiet, because although he sometimes ached with loneliness, a hole in his chest that Niall was the wrong shape to fill, he did like his solitude.

Whether this had been an elaborate prank or genuinely just a mess of coincidences, he still couldn’t be sure, but he still wanted payback. Thus far, he wasn’t sure whether an all-night marathon of his favourite cheesy musicals or a series of horror movies that would deprive them both of sleep for a month would be more of a punishment for Niall, but given the latter’s apparent sick fascination with disturbing films, he was inclined to opt for the musicals. After all, Louis loved a good sing-song – and Niall had seen  _Grease_ with him one too many times. Perhaps rather  _more_ than one. Louis smirked.

Still, whatever he did next, there was a holiday stretching out in front of them lasting over six weeks, only one of which he would be required to spend back at home with his family. He could sleep in until the afternoon and stay up til the small hours, allow his house to fall into ruin and not have to do any extra-curricular work whatsoever. His first year of torture was over, leaving him with unpaid bills but a whole lot of very welcome free time, and in the absence of a job, he was looking forward to the prospect of doing absolutely  _nothing._ There are few things more satisfying to do with one’s time than waste it.

Speaking of wasting time – he’d done plenty of that today, aimlessly painting a room which didn’t really need much attention, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he probably ought to have asked the landlord for permission to redecorate first, and it really was a rather  _violent_ shade of red, and maybe it was a kind of stupid idea. But he was angry. And if he hated the colour that much and the rules said he wasn’t supposed to change it, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t the time to paint over it in white again.

 _Best check the damage,_  Louis sighed, and he carried his tea through to the small living room, wishing he’d had the presence of mind to put newspaper down and praying that there wouldn’t be paint-drips on the carpet.

The first thing he noticed was the can of paint – still over half full, and it wasn’t a very large one. The room wasn’t very big either, of course, but it should still have needed at least two cans that size to cover it completely. Blinking, Louis stared at the skirting boards, which were still pristine white – not a drop of red to mar them, and he hadn’t exactly been concentrating very hard on being neat about it. He was almightily confused. Then his gaze travelled upwards.

He dropped his mug of tea, narrowly missing his feet, and it hit the ground. It wasn’t a classical movie moment, because the thin carpet was too soft for the ceramics to shatter, but tea sprayed all over the floor and then began soaking into the carpet in a soggy beige puddle. He seemed to be making a habit of dropping mugs, he noted detachedly as he stared at his walls, blinking furiously to try and clear his vision. Nothing happened; his view didn’t change.

Covering his face with his hands, Louis sank to the carpet and counted to ten, eyes closed – then twenty, then thirty, just to make sure. He didn’t peek once. But when he had reached the final number and slowly removed his fingers from his face, his despair only increased.

It had been bad enough scrawling that same ugly symbol all over his folder – but now, he had painted it all over his walls. The scarlet paint was sloshed in dozens of wobbly circles, the paint streaky from where it had run in places, and uneven crosses through the middle of them. It was like a child’s drawing pad; the designs were inane, identical, pointless.

And he didn’t remember painting any of them.

 _Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence,_ he chanted desperately, but  _bullshit, bullshit, bullshit_ came echoing straight back at him, and he grabbed his hair with both hands and did his best not to make pathetic noises. There was no one there to hear him, but if he didn’t have his sanity, his dignity, at least, was intact.

Eventually, he got back to his feet and walked over to the closest wall. With his eyes closed, he traced the shape of one of the symbols, feeling the lumps of half-dried paint underneath his fingertips, and took a very unsteady breath. “Okay,” he said shakily, and then gave a nervous laugh. “Okay.”

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring at the marks and panicking over the sudden absence of his own sanity, but in the end he came to the conclusion that according to Niall, he wasn’t crazy. Niall had a whole host of theories about this, and none of them involved Louis being insane – yet. (That part came later, apparently.) Of course, there was no guarantee that Niall wasn’t off his head as well, but, perhaps this shouldn’t have been a comforting thought,  _but_ – at least if he  _was_ mad, he wouldn’t have to be mad by himself. There was something reassuring about the fact that maybe he could go stark raving bonkers with his best friend right beside him.

Louis walked over to the phone and took hold of it, but hesitated before picking it up. What if this  _was_ all a joke? He still had a lingering fear that Niall had started a joke and Louis’ imagination had run with it, and Niall was basking in enjoyment of just how well his prank had gone. What if it was all a joke and the stress of university  _and_ whatever the hell that movie had done to his head had made him snap, and if he told Niall then the blond would be horrified and report him to someone? Louis didn’t want to end up in a straitjacket. He didn’t  _think_ he was crazy.

Breathing out, he picked up the phone. Niall’s number was on speed dial and he picked up on the first ring.

“Lou?”

“I’m gonna regret this,” Louis said in a defeated tone. “What’s this about a psychic?”


	5. Chapter 5

“You do know there’s like a ninety percent chance that this is all a load of coincidences and post-hypnotic suggestion, subliminal messaging-type crap that those movie makers sneaked into their shitty film to freak people out, right?” Louis asked, shivering as he rubbed his goose bump-littered arms. He sounded incredibly hopeful – it hadn’t been intentional.

“I know,” Niall said.

They were standing on the doorstep of a block of flats, and he was scanning the little labels beside the intercom buttons, looking for a specific name. It was a chilly morning; the leaves were rapidly falling off the trees and landing on people’s shoulders like giant brown dandruff, Louis could faintly see his breath when he exhaled, and the birds were singing far briefer, crisper melodies than they did in summer. He’d always felt that there was something tragically beautiful about autumn – like the world was having a funeral for all the beauty that would be lost, but at the same time it was comforted by the fact that it would all be back in a few months. It made him feel sad, but in a good way – a deep way.

Thoughts like that probably explained a great deal about why he’d never felt like other people’s minds worked quite the same way as his did. He was pretty sure that the extent of other people’s thoughts in autumn were along the lines of “it’s nearly winter, how depressing” and “Jesus, it’s cold!”

Finding the button he’d been looking for, Niall gave it a long, business-like push, and then stepped back a little like he thought it might bite him. Burying his gloved hands in his pockets, he gave Louis a reassuring look. “That’s why we’re here. Better to make twats of ourselves in front of one person than many. This kid knows her stuff. If there’s anything creepy going on with you, she’ll be able to tell.”

“Remind me how you found her again?”

Niall looked slightly sheepish. “Uh. She’s my mate’s girlfriend – you remember Zayn?”

Louis thought about it. “That guy who came to the Christmas party last year already hammered, drank a glass of apple juice and passed out on the floor?”

“That’s the one,” Niall said happily. “Anyway, he promised me that Perrie knows her stuff. There’s no weird sound-effects or people knocking on walls in her readings. It’s all genuine.”

“Mm,” Louis responded vaguely, thinking that he’d believe it when he saw it. His eyes flickered onto the grimy labels, and he saw that between the names  _Eileen Brown_ and  _Chris Mayfield_ was a label in rounded, girlish handwriting which simply read ‘ _Psychic Perrie’_ with a little smiley face and a heart drawn beside it. He resisted the urge to snort.

They stood and lingered for another minute or so, waiting for the intercom to crackle and ‘Psychic Perrie’ – Louis rolled his eyes every time he said it to himself – to start talking, but nothing happened. Uncomfortably, Niall shifted around, hands in his pockets, jiggling up and down.

“M-maybe she didn’t hear me,” he said uncertainly. “D’you think I should press the buzzer again?”

“If she’s really psychic, she’ll already know we’re here, right?” Louis answered sarcastically.

The intercom gave a little buzz and a groan, like a sleeping animal slowly rousing itself from a long sleep, and then a lilting, accented voice said “Hello, who is it?”

Niall raised his eyebrows triumphantly.

“That was a coincidence,” said Louis.

Smirking, Niall returned his attention to the intercom. “Uh, hi. We’re here for a reading? You’re Perrie, right?”

“That’s right. Which of my services were you hoping to hire?” she asked.  

She was a Geordie –  _brilliant,_ thought Louis. Now he was going to find it ten times harder not to laugh at her. “Aren’t you supposed to tell us?”

“The all-seeing eye becomes a little clouded under pressure,” she said dreamily; “every eye must first be opened, you know, or else even the oracle is left blind…”

Louis snorted.

Completely earnestly, Niall, who seemed to be buying all of this crap, told her “My friend has something on his tail – at least, we think he does. Y’know, something weird seems to be following him, like. We were wondering if you could tell us more about it.”

“Or whether it even exists at all,” Louis muttered.

Contemplatively, Perrie replied, “Ah, I see…”

“Oooh,  _do_  you?” asked Niall excitedly, his blue eyes wide with astonishment.

Seeming a bit irritated, Perrie corrected him, “I didn’t mean I _See_. Not yet, anyway. I meant I  _see_. There’s a difference. You’ll be able to tell; I do a different sort of voice for it. But that’s beside the point. Are you sure you want to seek the answers? The future has a price – a great and terrible price. Are you prepared to pay?”

“Oh, yes,” Niall said fervently. “Whatever it takes, whatever the price, we’ll pay it!”

“Excellent,” she said cheerfully, “that’s the ticket, babe, a tenner should do it!”

“Oh.” Hesitating, Niall admitted, “I was kind of hoping it’d be a metaphorical price. Um. Do you take IOUs?”

“Depends. Can I trust you?”

Was she  _flirting_ with him? Louis certainly thought so. He almost felt annoyed. What with this scarlet bombshell Charlotte, and now ‘Psychic Perrie’, Niall was getting far more action in the past few days than Louis had in the past few  _years._ After his first disastrous relationship at fourteen, a girl he’d dated because he’d been lonely and she’d needed a rebound, the extent of his luck had been a few drunken fumbles at parties every now and then. Of course, he would have been more envious if a hot guy had been flirting with Niall rather than a weird Geordie psychic with a cute voice (he had his preferences in a very definite order) but he was still allowed to be a  _bit_ jealous, right?

His annoyance meant that he turned up the irony in his voice to an obnoxious level as he said again, “Well, you tell us.”

“Listen, sweetheart, I don’t appreciate the backchat. Either get lost, or shut up, or I’ll kick that smart arse of yours from here to the end of next week.”

“He’ll shut up,” Niall quickly promised, and he gave Louis a look which said  _what on earth are you doing?_

“Tell you what, if you’ll make me a cup of tea and get smart-arse to keep his trap shut, I’ll discount you by twenty per cent. Come on up.”

The intercom buzzed nasally, and Niall tentatively tried the door only to find that it opened onto a dimly lit staircase. Shrugging at Louis as if to say ‘what the hell?’ Niall stepped inside, and Louis followed him rather warily, ascending the cramped staircase and looking nervously around. The wallpaper was peeling and shabby, some sort of flower frieze pattern that had long since disintegrated into grubby disarray, and every eight or nine steps or so a corridor branched off the staircase, leading down to a single door at the end.

Perrie’s flat was on the third floor, and although the other doors had been painted blue, with doorknockers and gold metal house numbers on them to give the feel as if they were suburban houses on an ordinary street, Perrie’s front door was fluorescent highlighter pink. There were designs painted all over it; swirls, delicate little flowers, crystal ball, a pack of playing cards, butterflies, and dead in the centre, an enormous green eye interspersed with swirls of midnight blue and decorated with glittery paint. In the middle of the eye’s pupil was a little peephole, and Louis couldn’t resist having a quick peer through it.

Only no sooner had he put his eye to the hole than he realised that he was not looking into the room beyond, but into someone else’s large blue eye, pressed up to the other side of the hole and looking very sternly at him. With a yelp, Louis leapt back, and then the door was abruptly yanked open and he found himself face to face with a beautiful pink-haired girl who was far closer to his height than he would have liked, and had her arms folded across her chest.

She wore denim shorts with lacy black tights underneath in a floral pattern, and a loosely fitting top that looked like it would float every time she moved. Her hair fell loosely around her shoulders, rather pinker at the bottom than at the top, going from candyfloss to raspberry pink. She also wore high heels, which made Louis feel rather better about her being almost as tall as him. Her eyes were big and dark, expertly outlined in liquid eyeliner, and she had bracelets all up and down her arms. Oh, and she had a small dog and a crystal ball cradled in her folded arms.

Raising her eyebrows disapprovingly at him, Perrie said, “Hmm.”

“Um,” was Louis’ response.

“So you’re the rude one, are you?”

“Um,” said Louis again. Then, hesitantly, “Yes?”

Her frown softened slightly. “Well, at least you’re man enough to admit it. Where’s the Irish one?”

Niall popped up from behind Louis and waved sheepishly, and Louis realised that the blond had been cowering behind him, apparently fearful of Psychic Perrie’s wrath. He wanted to snort or roll his eyes, then realised that she would probably assume both actions were intended for her and hastily tried to turn them into a fake sneeze. Then realised that maybe it was a bit hypocritical scoffing at Niall for being scared of her.

“Come in,” she said, “oh, and hold this,” and she dumped the Pomeranian into his arms.

Louis staggered, was thoroughly licked by the little dog and stumbled over the threshold, rather at a loss as to what he was supposed to do with it. In the end, he decided just to hold it, and sort of stroke it a bit. It seemed a friendly sort of dog, in any case. He stayed hanging on to it as he entered Perrie’s flat properly and looked around the room in interest.

It was a small room which had had a ridiculous amount of stuff crammed into it and yet still somehow managed to appear significantly larger than it actually was. Several squashy-looking armchairs, the kind that you sit in and then sink into like quicksand, were grouped around a little gas fire on one side of the room. A circular table was surrounded by a conglomeration of different chairs, from a stool to a three-legged kitchen chair with a pile of books supporting the other half a leg. On the table was a plate with half a sandwich on it, a pile of fancy-looking books titled in gilt lettering, a pack of what Louis assumed to be tarot cards, a pack of ordinary cards and a mug which, inexplicably, had “DAD” emblazoned on it in yellow bubble-writing. All around the room were piles of books, DVDs, fancy scented candles, and other paraphernalia, and the shelves were heaped with even more of it. One item which caught Louis’ notice was a (badly) hand-painted vase with wobbly flowers splotched on it. Another was an ornament shaped like a lion.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Louis muttered to Niall, “One wonders how the all-seeing eye can see anything at all, through all this mess.”

“Material concerns such as the placement and order of things have no effect upon the oracle,” Perrie announced dreamily as she floated past, shirt billowing wildly behind her like a pair of gossamer fairy wings, “only the overcrowding of the ether has any impact upon the inner eye…”

Louis and Niall exchanged glances, and Louis decided he’d better keep his mutterings to himself.

“Sit, sit,” Perrie told them, and Niall immediately collapsed into a squashy armchair and sank so far into it that his knees were almost level with his head. Louis was more careful about his seating arrangements, and ended up sitting carefully on the edge of one of the sturdier looking wooden chairs. The little dog appeared to find their position precarious, however, and started wriggling and yapping, trying to get free.

“Get  _down_ , Hatchi,” Perrie told it, then, to Louis, “drop him, he’ll be alright, I do it all the time.”

Louis carefully placed the wriggling Hatchi on the floor, and with a yip the little dog promptly vanished, skittering away across the floor, which was patterned like an enormous chessboard – but carpeted. He turned to watch it as it darted across the room

“Right,” said Perrie, sitting down on a nearby squashy chair with the kind of knack gained from years of practicing not getting sucked into an endless black hole lurking somewhere in the sinking material of her chair. She sat neatly, folds of her shirt falling around her like a robe, the light glinting off her pink hair and she smiled serenely. All she really needed was a little paper crown and she’d be a fairy queen, large as life and ten times as pretty. And Louis was gay, so for him to notice, she had to be damn pretty.

Niall had noticed, too. He was staring at her, his mouth hanging open in a rather ridiculous way, wide and enticing. Louis wanted to put something in it ( _not_ a cock, he primly told himself, since his mind was already wandering down that filthy road; Niall was his friend and that was that. A small rubber ball, or some food or something. Just to see if he stopped gawping at Perrie for long enough to notice.)

“Which of you was it who wanted the reading?” asked Perrie, graciously ignoring the fact that they were both staring at her.

“Me,” Louis said, waving sheepishly at her. “Um. Hello.”

“All right, well, do you want to shift a bit closer to me, babe? It works best when I hold your hands.” She gave him a sweet smile.

Licking his lips, Louis pulled up a chair opposite her and took her hands. They were small and delicate and she had chipped pink nail polish on, and what looked like a plastic mood ring on her index finger. Niall looked incredibly jealous of Louis.

He waited for Perrie to flip his hand over and start tracing the whorls of his palm, expecting some sort of palm reading – which he was dreading, since he had rather ticklish hands, and he thought she might be rather unimpressed if he wrenched his hands away and started howling with laughter halfway through the reading – but instead, she just looked at him. Her eyes were wide and pretty, two kinds of blue merged together as if the sky and sea had met and mingled, and she had very long eyelashes. Her lips were cranberry red and very shiny. She had an intense way of looking at you, as if she could see right inside you and all of your secrets were inscribed on your bones; her gaze flickered up and down, from Louis’ eyes to his feet, and it made him rather nervous. He shifted slightly uncomfortably, but didn’t take his hands away.

“Relax, babe,” Perrie breathed, an almost silent murmur like a puff of wind ruffling his hair, and Louis flinched.

“Right, sorry.”

Then, her eyes fluttered closed, long lashes resting on her pale cheek, and her lips parted with a soft sound. In the chair beside him, Niall was salivating, his stare fixated firmly on her mouth, but Louis was more concerned by the sudden stiffness of her shoulders, the slight furrow of her forehead, the discontent that had rolled across her face. She had been loose and relaxed, floating around the room with the perpetual ghost of a smile on her lips, but now she was tense, tightly wound like a clockwork doll.

Her scarlet lips moved infinitesimally, as if she were speaking, but he couldn’t hear a sound. For a moment, he allowed himself to wildly wonder whether she might be talking to spirits or something, but he quickly dismissed the notion. Her forehead furrowed deeper, as if invisible hands were etching lines there.

Despite all his assurances that Perrie definitely knew what she was doing, having apparently grown tired of staring hungrily at her, Niall became rather fidgety. He wasn’t used to sitting still – except, of course, when watching movies, or researching all sorts of phantasmagoria on the internet. “Um – it all started when we watched this movie the other day. It was –”

“Shh. Go and make us that cuppa, pet, I need to concentrate,” Perrie told him, her tone dreamy – but her eyes weren’t quite closed, and, freakily, Louis could see her eyes flickering underneath her closed lids. It was unnerving, to say the least.

Huffing as if offended, Niall clawed his way out of the collapsing chair and wove through the paraphernalia piled all over the floor, neatly hopping over a pile of worn paperback books and then skirting around a table covered in little Disney figurines (apparently, Psychic Perrie had a thing for Disney princesses.) The kitchen door creaked as Niall opened it, and Hatchi yapped excitedly around his ankles, pattering after him with his claws clicking on the tiles.

Irritated, Perrie dropped one of Louis’ hands without opening her eyes and flicked her fingers in the general direction of the little dog. She didn’t say a word, but Hatchi fell silent in an instant, and Louis blinked in surprise as she took his hand back. Her grip was surprisingly firm for someone with such little hands, her chipped fingernails digging into his palm.

In the kitchen, Niall continued messing around, spoons clinking and the kettle whistling because it was a really old one, the sound of Hatchi wandering around with his claws clicking against the floor, and all the while Perrie’s grip on Louis’ hand became firmer and firmer until it started to  _hurt,_ his eyes watering as her long nails imprinted deep red grooves into his skin. Louis didn’t like to complain, out of courtesy more than anything else, but it was honestly becoming too much and he was about to utter some sort of quiet complain when Perrie gasped, her eyes flying open in shock.

“Oh, sweetheart!” she said, her mouth hanging open. “I had no idea!”

Niall poked his head around the kitchen door, his cheeks stuffed full of biscuits like a hamster’s pouches – apparently he’d decided that being appointed tea-maker meant he was allowed to help himself to Perrie’s food. “Whu?” he demanded, words distorted by the food, “whu’s goin’ on, ’sappenin’?”

Louis winced in disgust at his abominable manners, but Perrie didn’t seem to notice. She was still staring at him, dismay etched across her face.

“What?” Louis croaked. He’d been adamant that he didn’t believe in any of this before now, but now he was terrified at the prospect that there might be something wrong with him.

“So lonely,” Perrie said, half to herself, and she let go of his hands with a pained expression, like the skin contact had hurt her. Shivering, she rubbed her arms, now littered with goosebumps, fine hairs standing on end like a cat’s fur. “You’ve always felt alone. You can be standing in a room full of people, but it’s never right. You never feel like they’re with you. It’s like – like on TV shows, where one thing is in focus and everything else just sort of blurs out. You’re the only real thing in the world. It’s not so bad sometimes, with just a few people, but you’ve never really been able to banish that loneliness, have you?”

Staring at her, Louis felt his mouth dry out. This wasn’t the sort of thing she could have made up – he’d never told  _anyone_ about that feeling, how the hell did she know?

Niall came rushing back in, somehow balancing three cups of tea between his two hands, and Louis accepted his shakily, gripping the cup so hard that he could feel the heat searing his fingertips, his palms. He appreciated the pain – it helped to convince him that he wasn’t dreaming. Perrie took her own mug delicately, with two fingers curled elegantly around the handle, but her hand shook as she sipped, leaving a perfect lipstick imprint on the rim, two printed rose petals creased with delicate white lines.

“Ever since childhood you’ve never felt  _right._ You always tried to be included – people liked you, you were funny and they enjoyed spending time with you, but it’s always felt like there was something missing. You aren’t quite finished. Everyone else walks this earth feeling complete, but not you. Everyone else is in colour and you’re black and white. You could never put it across to anyone, not in terms that they’d understand. You’re handsy. You love cuddles, but you could be curled up on a sofa with ten people all crammed in beside you and you’d still feel isolated. All you’ve ever really wanted is to feel like that you were honestly a  _part_ of something, am I right?”

His throat was closing up. His eyes ached. Louis nodded.

“It’s all right,” she promised him earnestly. “It’s okay.”

His face was wet – he was crying. Confused and a little angry at his reaction, Louis swiped at his eyes, trying to destroy the evidence of his weakness, but Perrie was smiling kindly, a soft curve of her vibrant mouth. She didn’t seem to be judging his stupidity. He’d always hated this feeling of his, the lack of inclusion. He tried to bury it – after all, he knew it was irrational. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have friends, family, there had  _always_ been people around him, his attempts to stifle his loneliness. But even at parties, drunken and laughing and surrounded, he always felt just the same as he did when he was by himself completely. His chest was an empty cavity, a bottomless pit that he could never fill no matter how much company he had.

He always tried to bury it, to ignore it. It must have just been how he was, a fact of his biology. A self-inflicted misfit, setting himself apart from everyone else. But he craved the solidarity that came so easy to everyone else, and found it so embarrassing, so disheartening that mere company never seemed to be enough for him. Why was he this way? He had a cool, if excitable best friend. He had a big family. He’d always been reasonably popular – although these days he’d grown tired of the effort and began to become a bit of a recluse. University hadn’t really done much for his social life, quite the opposite, in fact. For some reason nothing was ever  _enough_ for him.

“You’ve been noticed. I don’t know – I’m sorry, I can’t really tell whether it’s going to impact you well or not, but someone has seen how lonely you are, how isolated you always feel. There’s going to be a big change in your life. Someone is watching you.”

Louis stared at her in revulsion. He had a  _stalker?_ How was that in any way okay? “What?”

“Ooh, like a protector! A guardian angel!” Niall burbled excitedly, almost choking on his tea.

“I can’t really be sure. Maybe. This is a very imprecise art, I’m sorry. But I know you’re being watched, there’s a very powerful influence about to enter your life. I can’t tell you whether you’ll benefit from it or not, or whether their intentions are good or not, or anything useful, I’m afraid,” she admitted; “to use a slight cliché, the inner eye is…clouded. Considerably. It could well be the influence of whatever is watching you, I can’t seem to get a clear view.” She gave him a steady look. “But one thing, I do know: there’s definitely someone out there who’s got their eye on you, Louis. You may feel like you’re alone, but trust me – you couldn’t be more wrong.”

                                                                                                           ~*~

Hands in his pockets, purple hoodie covering his head, Louis stormed down the street with Niall hurrying after him, splashing through puddles. It had started to rain, and he could have sworn he heard thunder rumbling in the far distance, although it might have been Niall’s stomach. His converse were sopping wet, his toes damp, the wind screeching bad-temperedly around him, inside his clothes to scrape at his skin, pulling at his hair, making his eyes water. There was a lump in his throat and he’d spilt tea on his jeans when he made his angry exit from Perrie’s flat.

He’d been polite – icily so, finding a crumpled ten pound note in his pocket which, for some obscure reason, had a cartoon animal stamped on it (presumably that meant one of his sisters had had it at one point) and paying her, thanking her for her time. But he was furious.

He was frightened, to begin with – at all of the things she had known about him, all his horrible private thoughts, and he was outraged that she’d spilled them all so freely in front of Niall, his hidden shames and secrets that had left him lying numbly in bed staring at the ceiling until the smallest hours of the morning, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He was angry, eyes and cheeks stinging with shame, unable to look round even though Niall was calling his name, because he couldn’t stand to see the confusion, hurt, lack of comprehension in the blond’s face. But most especially, he was furious that the girl had so earnestly told him someone was watching over him, trying to comfort him, because she _pitied_ him. His pride was in shreds. She felt  _sorry_ for him, told him stupid lies about some omniscient protector who might have been keeping him safe, when he knew full well that either he was insane, or some monster was lurking in the shadows and stalking him around.

“Jesus, Louis, will you  _slow down_?” Niall yelled, and Louis turned round, yanking his hands out of his pockets, the wind dragging his hood down for the dozenth time, except this time he didn’t bother to pull it back up.

His cheeks were pink with the cold; his eyes were the flickering blue flames on a gas hob. “What the _hell_ was that?” he demanded.

“That was her telling us everything we needed to know – Slenderman’s after you, Louis, we need to find some stuff, make sure he can’t –”

“Fuck off with your  _fucking_   _Slenderman_! I’m tired of all of this  _crap_ , all right? Nightmares, and jumping out of my skin every time I see movement in my peripheral vision, and throwing up everywhere, and trailing here there and everywhere trying to prove or disprove it all! You know what that was – I’ll  _tell_ you what that was: that was her, spouting a bunch of bullshit and thinking we’d be gullible enough to swallow it! Ooh, some  _mysterious guardian_ is watching you, Louis, isn’t that lovely, here, have a sweetie and a pat on the head, it’ll all be fucking fine! Fuck! It’s all rubbish, and I’m sick of it – and I saw how she looked at me, how dare she feel sorry for me? How dare  _anyone_ feel sorry for me?”

Niall was only making it worse, his face awash with sympathy. Louis wanted to hit him.

“Listen – what she said, about always feeling like you were alone. If I’d known, I wouldn’t –”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you  _dare_ , you’re doing it too, feeling sorry for me! I don’t want your pity, I don’t want it, I don’t  _want_ it! I don’t want you, or her, or anyone. She was pulling all of that out of her arse, and – oh, you know what? Screw you!” Louis yelled, “don’t talk to me, don’t come near me again! Fucking me about, with that movie, and now I’m nuts, and all everyone can give me is pity. Fuck you! FUCK. YOU.”

He barely knew what he was saying, mindlessly screaming at Niall, trying to release some of the horrible pent up emotion that was making his chest so heavy and tight. But Niall didn’t seem angry at all; barely blinked at the swearwords, seemed to have no intention of storming away in a huff. All of that just made Louis feel worse. He didn’t deserve friends like that, who let him yell abuse at them and didn’t even get angry. And he still couldn’t stand the look of commiseration on Niall’s face.

“It’s okay, Louis.”

_No, it isn’t,_ Louis thought – because what sort of rubbish was that? It wasn’t okay to take everything out on Niall like that, or to never have felt a part of something even though he pretended to everyone, including himself, that he was fairly content with his lot in life, or to have been reduced to tears by some girl he didn’t know who had looked into his eyes like they were windows and spilled out every shameful, miserable thought in his head – and he gave Niall the finger in the most violent way possible, almost shoving it up his nose. Then he turned around and stormed off, prowling away into the rain, following the darkest thundercloud, determined to get as far away from his best friend as he possibly could.

He half wanted Niall to keep coming after him, to tramp through the rain in his dirty Supras and grab his shoulder, hug him, yell at him, offer more stupid consolations, even though he wasn’t quite sure what he’d have done if he had. But apparently, Niall had finally gotten the message, because Louis didn’t look back until he’d reached the end of the street and was turning the corner, and by that time, the rain-sodden blond with his hair turning golden brown in the rain was walking off in the opposite direction, slowly shaking his head as he went.

                                                                                                        ~*~

Actually  _being_  alone instead of just feeling it actually felt rather shitty.

Louis got home, still soaking wet, and went through the motions of normal behaviour. He left his saturated shoes in the kitchen on a piece of newspaper to dry. He stripped his clothes off and put them on the radiator to air. Then he went and had a shower, standing numbly underneath the spray, so hot that his skin turned angry red, and he watched the water pouring down his body and wished it would wash him away, down the drain and the sewer and so many endless pipes into the sea, until he was just another drop of water in the ocean. Would he still feel alone, then?

Probably. It was time to face facts: he was irreparably fucked up.

Louis stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, and he was shivering by the time he scrambled out, towelled himself dry, and put on old sweatpants and a black tank top he’d worn so many times that it was softer than a baby’s face. (Not that he was in the habit of touching babies’ faces…) It was only half past seven, so he padded into the kitchen in his old slippers and made himself a bowl of soggy cornflakes, which he munched in silence, then he cleaned his teeth and went to lie in bed, willing himself to fall asleep, as if it were just that easy.

Except nothing is ever that easy. Hours passed, and Louis listened to his sad playlist on his ipod, staring numbly at the white ceiling while the soft notes of  _Miserable At Best_ and  _Remembering Sunday_ swirled around him, soothing him into an almost sleep. Stupidly, he couldn’t quite fall asleep with the music still playing, keeping him hovering on the exhausted brink of unconsciousness – but when he turned it off, that was even worse, left with his own awful thoughts spinning through his mind, crashing and burning against his temples like meteor showers. It was the worst kind of torment, neither asleep or awake but somewhere in between – and he hated that silence, so he kept listening to the music until his ipod died, and then there was only emptiness and the echo of the music he suddenly wanted back.

His digital clock shone with blood red numbers: 21.43, more than two hours he’d wasted lying in bed and still he wasn’t asleep. Now his spine was prickling, tingling, and for some weird reason, the numbness seemed to be leaving him, although he’d lain for so long in one position that his limbs had all fallen asleep even though, physically, he hadn’t.

Slowly, Louis took his ear buds out, lifting his head a little. He was sure there was something wrong, something out of place – just a little something, that irksome sensation like an itch, as if something in the room had shifted ever so slightly. For some reason, his heart started thumping harder, and he lay back down, twitching his fingers and toes as the feeling crept back into them, whole body prickling unpleasantly like he was rolling around in stinging nettles. He couldn’t seem to shake the paranoid feeling that someone was watching him, like a pair of big eyes were fixated on him through the darkness, and he gripped the sheets he lay on, disliking the unease.

_Sit up then, idiot,_ he told himself,  _prove it, prove there’s nothing there._ But he was frightened to do that, of course, because of the insistence of the little voice in the back of his mind, that ever-present little whiner that said  _what if there was?_

Taking a deep breath, Louis wet his lips. His throat was dry; the feeling had returned to his feet but they felt like they were carved of ice, and he had to prise his fingers from the duvet because they seemed to have forgotten how to move.

_Sit up on the count of three,_ he told himself. Heart hammering.  _Do it. No, I don’t want to. Do it, for God’s sake, there’s nothing there! One. Two. Three –_ and then he was up, mouth falling open, and his frantically thudding heart stopped entirely as he choked on his next breath

There was a  _thing_ in the far corner of his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, and just a heads up for anyone who might be getting bored - Harry makes his grand entrance next chapter ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Kind of short; another cliffhanger…you hate me, I know ;) I swear I’ll stop soon

Instantly, Louis covered his eyes with both hands. It was like an instinct – a silly little ‘if I can’t see it, it can’t see me’ moment, just wishful thinking, really, but everything plunged into darkness, and the instant he stopped looking at it, he felt so much better. Except for the little nagging feeling that quickly became a _big_ nagging feeling, and then a loud, screaming feeling:  _what are you doing, you idiot? It could be coming for you now, you can’t see it, it could be getting closer and closer, it could be right in front of you exhaling rotting maggoty breath right in your face and you wouldn’t –_

 _No._ That was stupid. Of course he’d know if it was in front of him. It wasn’t real, there wasn’t anything there, just a trick of the light! He’d feel it breathing on him if it was, and could it even breathe?  _Did_  it? It certainly couldn’t breathe stinky breath onto him; it didn’t even have a mouth. Keeping his hands firmly over his eyes, Louis told himself to breathe, and each time he did, he felt an awful lot better. In.  _It’s nowhere near you. All the way over there._ Out.  _Look, it’s probably not even over there. It’s all in your mind._ In.  _Not even real; just a trick of the light, you’re just imagining it. Mind playing tricks on you._ Out. _You’re stressed. Overworked. Sleep deprived. No wonder you’re going round the bend. It’s all in your head._ In.  _Nothing to worry about. Open your eyes, you twat!_ Out.

He opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t because the thing was still there, and now it was staring right at him. At least, he thought it was. It was hard to tell, seeing as it didn’t really have a face.

But its whole head was turned towards him, and in that moment his body completely locked down into the paralysis of the truly terrified. He sucked a breath back in and choked on it, fingers curling into the duvet, and his mouth fell open – to swear, scream, whimper, threaten it, anything – but the figure on the other side of the room swung a long-fingered hand to its mouth, and made a shushing gesture, and Louis’ mouth dried instantly. He wanted to shuffle back, or to run, but it would catch him long before he reached the door. It was like being in a standoff with a snake – he just had to freeze.

It took a step forward, and the remaining colour trickled out of Louis’ face. But then there was a pause; the creature shook itself like a dog, and then it seemed to begin folding in on itself, crumpling like a paper doll. He dared to hope for a moment that there was something wrong with it, that by some miraculous stroke of luck it was going to die or something, but as he watched, he realised that it was just getting smaller. It contracted for a while, growing to a far less monstrous size, until eventually it reached around the height of a fairly tall man, a head or so taller than Louis, but not an unreasonable height, really.

The change didn’t stop there. Its blank, awful face began to contort, bubbling like hot wax, until a long, slender shape pushed out from underneath the skin to form a nose. Next came a mouth; plump, pretty lips, which looked all the more horrific in that eyeless alabaster face – but wisps of white eyelashes started growing, along with thick curly hair that began to grow until it fell in huge wisps, framing his face, and then, like cling film being peeled away, came two flaps of skin that fluttered and blinked and turned out to be eyelids – and terrible, staring eyes, ditchwater grey and with no pupil or iris to distinguish one part from the next.

Louis stared at this thing, this boy, colourless and, though he hated to admit it, built like one of Michelangelo’s statues. It certainly looked like it was made of marble. He didn’t trust it; this was probably some diversionary tactic, like sirens or succubi, becoming gorgeous and sexy to lure people in. (Thanks to Niall, he knew a thing or two about monster movies, especially monster movies involving hot women which were actually  _things._ )

All of a sudden the first splash of colour danced across the boy’s mouth, like an artist beginning to dab paint there. They turned delicate candyfloss, looking soft and delicious, and Louis wanted to nibble the lower one, except he wasn’t thinking about that, because it was all a ruse, obviously. Dark brown started dripping down from the roots of that white hair like a chocolate fountain pouring onto his head, tinged with glittering caramel highlights, and his eyes flooded with the deep, soft green of damp moss, two little dark ink blots for pupils appearing in the middle. Long dark lashes fluttered against his moonbeam skin as he looked down at the ground, and a shockingly pink tongue slipped out of his mouth to lick those blossom-bright lips. His clothes didn’t change from that sombre black funeral-type suit with dirt on the cuffs, but it seemed to have shrunk to fit him rather than being stretched tightly over his long limbs.

His head jerked upwards, staring right at Louis, and Louis yelped and flinched away from him in utter horror. In silence, the boy took several long, loping steps forwards, and Louis’ eyes widened in horror as he watched him advance.

When he was about halfway across the room, the boy stopped, and his vivid lips parted with a soft pop that terrified Louis but kind of made him blush, too, because it sounded really hot, even coming from a monster’s decidedly pretty lips. Then, its voice echoed in his head, like the memory of someone talking, as clear as his own voice, but lower, and oddly gentle, as if for some reason it was trying not to alarm him but unable to hold the query back,  _What is wrong with you?_

 


	7. Chapter 7

_What is wrong with you?_  repeated the monster in that same quiet but insistent tone.

It should not be assumed that Louis was not, quite frankly, terrified by that point. Because he was, in every sense of the word. All the moisture in his mouth had evaporated, there was a lump in his throat that felt like a rock, he was shaking like a leaf and his heart – well, it had started up again, but it felt like it was trying to claw its way up his oesophagus, leap out of his mouth and make a run for it, and Louis was half inclined to join it. 

However, one thing which Louis had always had at his disposal was a penchant for extreme sarcasm, especially when he was intimidated. It was something which had often gotten him into trouble in the past; whenever a teacher began telling him off, or someone started threatening him, or he basically entered into any sort of situation where it would have been better for him to keep his mouth shut, he couldn’t seem to help but start back-chatting them. It was like a survival instinct. Most people had fight or flight ingrained into them – Louis had sarcasm instead.

So yes, he was terrified; his chest was tight like he had been laced into a corset, his hands were clammy and cold like he’d just plunged them into a pool of icy water, and his stomach was churning like a stormy ocean, but somehow he still managed to sit bolt upright in bed and say loudly “What’s wrong with _me_? What’s wrong with  _you?_ ”

It – the thing – he – the monster – blinked dolefully at him. Louis felt incredibly unnerved by the sensation in his head – not his physical head, but inside. It bounced around the parameters of his mind like a note reverberating through him, a clear peal like a bell chiming – and then the monster said simply,  _Nothing is wrong with me. What is wrong with you?_

Its voice was in his head! It was telepathic, its voice was flooding his mind and he couldn’t block it out – and if it was inside his head, then surely the connection worked both ways, which meant that it could probably hear what he was thinking  _right now._

Louis swore veraciously several times in his head, just in case that was the case, and hoped that even monsters understood when they were being insulted. Then, he said out loud, “How can you say there’s nothing wrong with you? You are talking  _inside my mind._ Who does that?  _What_ does that? What are you, what the  _hell_ even are you?”

The monster didn’t seem fazed by his anger; he was catching a slightly bewildered air from its presence in his mind (Louis shuddered at the sheer unnaturalness of it all) but it was maintaining a blank, polite expression – or perhaps it hadn’t quite figured out what it was supposed to do with its face. He supposed, if it was used to not having one, it must be quite weird trying to mimic appropriate expressions.

_They call me the Slenderman._

“Is that what you are?”

_That is what they call me._

“Yeah, but is that what you actually are? Do you have a name?”

_They call me the Slenderman._

“What do you call  _yourself_?”

_I don’t call myself anything. I am not in the habit of addressing myself._ Perhaps Louis was imagining it, but he thought that maybe the monster was making fun of him. Its face was still unnervingly blank, but he thought he detected a hint of amusement in its tone.  _Are you?_

_Don’t get cocky with me, monster,_ Louis thought, and then remembered that it could probably hear him. Whoops. “Well, I’m not calling you Slenderman, so, who or whatever you are – what do you want?”

Once again, it blinked at him, a slow dip of eyelids to obscure bright green cat eyes, long lashes brushing against its white cheek – in an all-too human motion, it reached up to push several stray curls off its face, and Louis swallowed. He didn’t like that, how much it looked like an ordinary human boy.  _You’re lonely._

That made Louis angry. Why did everyone assume that, why did everyone  _know_ that? Did his secrets count for nothing? Why did everyone seem to think it was acceptable to go rifling through his head and then state all of his private shames so blatantly, as if he were perfectly amenable to having everyone know them?

“God, not you, too! Why does everyone keep saying that, why does everyone assume they know what I’m feeling? I’m not lonely! I have friends! I have family! I have people around me, what right or reason do I have to be lonely?” he demanded bitterly.

He was met by a level green gaze. The monster said nothing.

“All right, fine. You know what? Maybe I  _am_ lonely. Maybe I  _do_ sit in a room full of people and feel like I don’t belong there, like they don’t want me there. Maybe I always want to be on my own, but hate it when I am. What’s it to you?”

_I can help you,_ the monster said simply. That was different, certainly. No bland sympathy that he didn’t want, to injure his pride and make him feel ashamed – and he didn’t think it was joking, either. And it wasn’t looking pityingly at him, as if he were pathetic for feeling so isolated from everyone; he almost got the feeling that maybe it understood. Being a monster couldn’t be particularly good for one’s social life, after all.

“ _You_?” Louis said, with a derisive snort, feeling like it was easier to be rude to it than to empathize – and he didn’t feel much inclined to have a good old heart to heart about loneliness and how much life sucked with a thing which had been following him round and lurking in his peripheral vision for weeks. “How could  _you_  help me?”

_I am, as you say, a monster. I have always been alone._ He spoke dispassionately, as if talking about a stranger.  _I hate to see others the same way. So I travel the world, and I find people like you and I. The lonely ones, the ones without hope, who feel empty and alone, and the ones who feel their lives aren’t worth living. Then I find someone for them – their other half, the piece that they’ve always felt is missing, and I bring them together. There’s someone for everyone. I find everyone’s soul mate._

“Oh, yeah? I know all about what you do when you find people, after you’ve stalked them around for a good few weeks. So what are you going to do, monster? Kidnap me and take me to a tea party – where I’m the tea?”

_I do not_ kidnap  _people._ He looked offended, and Louis felt strangely guilty for a moment before he shoved the feelings aside.  _There is such thing as a language barrier? What, do you think someone has to speak your language to be your soul mate? Some people are different races, cultures, different everything. It would be impractical to move one or the other of them – so I…relocate them both._

“Relocate them? Where?”

It was hard to describe what the monster did next – it didn’t shrug, not physically, but somehow the idea of a shrug entered Louis’ mind. Like an  _abstract_  shrug. It confused him, but before he could try to get his head around it, once again his head was filled with that slow, deep voice.  _Wherever’s easiest. Another country. Perhaps another dimension, if the language barrier is going to be so much of a problem. In some places, language doesn’t have as much as an impact as it has here._

“All right, so say I believed you. How does this benefit you, all these good deeds? Sure, all these people get soul mates and eternal happiness, and whatever, but what do you get? There’s got to be some sort of price to pay.”

_I get to see people happy. I get to stop someone from feeling how I feel. There’s nothing I can do about my own… predicament, but I can help others._

Oh. That was…selfless. He hadn’t expected such an answer and now he wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to it – embarrassingly, he’d anticipated that the monster would want some terrible price in return for its services. The first born child of all the couples, or the blood of eight virgins, or something suitably gruesome and dramatic. Learning that all the thing wanted was to see people happy…it was sort of unnerving, actually.

“Do you want to sit down?” It was displaying astonishingly human behaviour, really, as well as seeming to be almost  _kind._ Louis felt rude all of a sudden, and patted the bed to invite it over, as he would any other guest. Might as well display some common courtesy, after all. Although it looked uncertain, it slowly walked across the room and sat at the foot of the bed, hands clasped in its lap.

“So, you help people. That’s really…nice.” Louis brightened. “Hey, did you find my soul mate yet?” Ah, he could see it now. The monster was like St Valentine, here to bring him a tall, dark, handsome boyfriend. Rugged, sexy, dangerous. Nice hair. Preferably sarcastic and good in bed. Forget St Valentine – the monster was Santa Claus. Santa Claus, in a raggedy old suit.

_I’m working on it. There’s a whole world out there, you know. Seven billion people. Any one of them could be your other half._

“Um. Not…quite. You do know I’m gay, right?”

_Gay?_

Louis felt decidedly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking. “You know. I don’t like girls. In that way. Is that gonna be a problem?” he asked aggressively, because monster or no monster, he wasn’t going to take any shit about his sexuality.

_Oh,_ came the reply, and it sounded as if he ought to be waving his hand, like that was of no consequence at all.  _Why does there need to be a word for that? I knew that already. That’ll be taken into consideration. No girls,_ he promised.

Louis went to address the monster, then hesitated. “Look, monster, do you mind if I call you something? Because I’m getting really tired of this ‘monster’ crap.”

Perhaps he imagined it, but he thought the monster gave him an extremely pithy look, as if it were saying ‘yeah, tell me about it’. But it stayed completely polite in tone as it replied,  _Are you going to call me Slenderman?_

“Definitely not; that’s just as bad. I was thinking of just an ordinary name – a  _human_ name. Like, my name’s Louis.”

_I know that,_ the monster replied with amusement.  _Louis._

“Oh.”  _Of course you do. Probably know my shoe size, inner leg measurement and national insurance number as well, don’t you, you creeper?_ “Well, what should I call you, then? What’s your favourite name?”

After a moment of consideration, the monster replied, without a trace of irony,  _Louis._

_…Bit weird._ “Well, that’s  _my_  name. You can’t have it. Shall I think of one, then?”

It waited patiently without answering; Louis decided to take that as a yes. He started racking his brains trying to think of a good name, one that didn’t belong to someone he already knew. Niall might not mind having a monster named after him, but Louis’ other friends probably would.

_What about…no, I’m not naming you after a porn star._ He was struggling, really, he was. He didn’t want to name him after any of his celebrity crushes, anyone he knew, or basically anyone he’d ever met, which didn’t leave him much choice. Nor could he give the monster a silly name out of a movie, because as much as he hated to admit it, aside from the sarcasm it was being very pleasant to him – especially considering how rude he’d been to it at first. Looking around the room for inspiration, he was seriously desperate for ideas by the time he spotted the first book on a pile of many that he’d shoved in the corner, dog-eared and with ripped covers, well-loved from hours he’d spent perusing them. The battered cover of one caught his eye; he found himself staring at the phoenix flying out of the flames with its wings spread out, and then – yes, that worked pretty well.

“Harry,” he offered.

It appraised him with interest.  _Harry,_ it mused.

“I like Harry,” decided Louis. The description seemed to fit, to a certain extent. Messy dark hair. Tall. Those piercing green eyes. Magical powers that wouldn’t have been expected from such a scrawny, ordinary-looking boy.

_I like Harry,_ repeated the monster.

It sounded happy – and then it tried a smile, and its whole face lit up, blazing and brilliant. Louis felt like he’d been punched in the chest. Wow. It was such a strangely beautiful expression, it made a slow ache coil like thorny vines around his ribcage, constricting and cracking his bones. He shook the feeling away instantly – or at least, he tried to, but he could still feel the thin hairline fractures left behind by the feeling. He didn’t remember anyone’s smile ever affecting him that intensely before. It left him shaken, the sudden change that the monster’s unexpected smile had brought, leaving him a little lightheaded. The change in his viewpoint of the monster was sudden and shocking, but whereas he had been intimidated by it, hiding behind sarcasm and jokes, he now felt…he wasn’t sure  _how_ he felt. His mistrust was fading, certainly. But perhaps that was its doing, some more of its mind games. Shifting uncomfortably, Louis looked away.

The monster – Harry – seemed to notice his sudden discomfort.  _I am going to go now._

“What, you don’t want to stalk me a little more?” Louis asked sardonically before he could stop himself.

_Not today,_ Harry said, trying out a little smirk that looked far more practiced and natural than it was.  _It’s late. You get grouchy when you don’t get enough sleep._

Louis opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

_I will be on the lookout. There must be someone out there for you. I will find them._

Getting off the bed, Harry politely inclined his head – and what happened next was hard to explain. It was as if he had a cloak that he whipped up around himself, covering himself entirely in shadows. Louis stared with his mouth open as Harry whirled around, darkness completely shrouding his dirty black suit and covering his curly hair – and then he was gone, as if he’d never been there, and there was an unseasonable chill hanging about the room.

He waited a good fifteen or twenty minutes, sat in the dark with his eyes wide open, making sure that he was completely alone. Of course, monsters could well have the ability to turn invisible, but he didn’t think it had lied to him about leaving. There was something adorably earnest about its expression, about how its voice had chimed in his mind. It sounded…honest.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t creepy as fuck, though. Even if the form it’d assumed for the duration of the conversation was kind of…hot.

“Fuck,” Louis muttered, drawing the covers up to his chin. “No. It’s a monster. It isn’t hot – that’s practically bestiality.”

Lying down, he pulled the covers over his head and did his best to distract himself with thoughts of how annoying it was that Niall was right, how irritating he found it that everyone seemed to think it was okay to go rooting through his head these days, how much he was looking forward to having a hot soul mate who would hopefully look like a young Leonardo Di Caprio crossed with Johnny Depp, and basically anything other than the spark in the monster’s excitable green eyes.

Oh, and the fact that it had never told him what was supposed to be wrong with him.

                                             ~*~

So he had a name, now. Harry. It was nice to have a name – a proper, actual name, rather than just a title that made people either suck in a breath or raise their eyebrows sarcastically when they said it. It was also nice to have had a conversation with someone – the first real conversation he ever remembered actually having. It had taken him a while to master words, practicing over and over by himself in his old house until he could make himself understood, but he’d spent long enough watching humans to have a fairly good understanding of what most things meant. He was pleased that his hope that Louis was different had at least sort of been proved right. After all, most people who he revealed himself to tended to scream, hide, or become immediately convinced of their own mental instability. The contact was never usually clear enough to make himself properly understood, either, even if he had put his mind to learning how to talk before now, but his link with Louis had been sharp and clear, and it was easy to make him understand with the transference of a few words and emotions. And after a few quips and insults, Louis had been remarkably calm, even if he had become a bit edgy towards the end.

Still, he had to admit that he was still a little confused about Louis. Usually, finding people’s soul mates was easy – he paired them up as easily as humans paired up socks, except more romantically, and with far more enthusiasm. It was simple – as soon as he’d found the first person, he reached out with the extra sense he’d honed to perfection over the years, and the second person’s whereabouts jumped out at him, calling to him, the faint melody of their song guiding him until he could find them easily and bring them together. Except he’d spent days, weeks, even, following Louis around until he could have picked out that song from the midst of an enormous orchestra, could have hummed it backwards in his sleep, but he couldn’t seem to find the one that matched it earlier. He had this aggravating feeling, like an itch he couldn’t reach, or a splinter just underneath the skin, that he was missing something. Something big, something obvious. But he just couldn’t figure out  _what._

In truth, though, he was almost relieved that this wouldn’t be over as quickly as usual. He’d enjoyed his conversation with Louis, hoped there’d be more – now that he’d spoken to one person, he wanted more; wanted conversations that lasted hours, talking way into the night, watching Louis’ lips move and sounds flow smoothly out. He wanted to learn to do that too, to copy him and figure out how to speak that way, to be normal so that Louis wouldn’t think he was a freak. Maybe Louis wouldn’t mind teaching him how to be more human – being human was all he’d ever really wanted. That, and someone to care about him.

_Maybe Louis would care._

There it was again, that feeble hope, that  _need_ to believe that this ordinary human boy was so special, so different from the others, that he cared and that somehow he would change things. He knew that he should detach himself from this stupid idea immediately, that nothing would come of it, it would only upset him in the end when he’d found Louis a soul mate and he had outstayed his welcome and they would both want rid of him, and Louis would be pleased to see the back of him once he was gone. But he didn’t have the willpower for that.

He reassumed his usual form, all supple shadows and liquid darkness so that he could slip through a crack in the broken window of the house he was staying in. But instead of lying down on his makeshift bed, he stood by the window, wiping it with his long fingers to try and clean it. He ended up merely smearing the dirt around, ruining the domestic effect he’d been trying to mimic, and he turned wistfully away. He wasn’t good at being human.  

Still. Even though it would all once again end in loneliness and that awful emptiness inside him that nothing ever seemed to get rid of, he figured there was no reason why he couldn’t savour its temporary banishment. If he had a chance to spend some time with Louis, why not? At least it might comfort him that  _someone_ didn’t completely despise him.

If he’d had a mouth at that current moment in time, he might have smiled. Instead, he sat on the floor and consoled himself with thoughts of caramel hair and a pair of eyes that looked like pieces of the ocean had frozen over and glittered in his tanned face, of a voice that had been sharp and sarcastic and spoken to him like he was like other people…like he could even  _call_ himself a person.

_Louis._


	8. Chapter 8

Louis was making himself a cup of tea when he felt the familiar prickling on the back of his neck that he’d been missing – it had been present almost constantly for weeks before Harry had confronted him, so that now it felt almost strange not to be uncomfortably aware of someone watching him when he had believed himself to be alone. He looked over his shoulder, half expecting a dark-haired figure to be standing in the doorway, but no one had appeared, so he filled the kettle and placed two mugs on the counter. Might as well offer it a cuppa. It’d be rude not to, really.

He turned around, wondering whether he had any good biscuits left or whether Niall had eaten them all, and found himself face to face with Harry, their noses millimetres from touching. The monster was so still and silent that there had been no indication he was there at all. They were staring into each other’s eyes; he was so close that Louis could see every detail of his face, every shade of green in his solemn eyes, every tiny blemish, though there were few. He could have slipped his face to the side a little and rested his nose in the concave of one dimple. Louis swallowed, trying to quickly come up with some sarcastic quip about personal space, or even a gentle reminder, but his mind had gone blank. Nose to nose with one of the most attractive faces he’d ever seen, he’d actually forgotten how to use sarcasm. There was no hope for him.

“Hi,” he said softly, then cleared his throat, embarrassed at how faint his voice was. “Hi. Any luck?”

It was hard to read such an inscrutable face, one that was perpetually blank, but Louis almost wondered as the words left his mouth whether, at that moment, Harry was keeping his face as that empty mask on purpose. His voice sounded just as devoid of emotion, flat and uncaring, as he announced,  _Your soul mate is not in Holland._

It was disconcerting, how empty he sounded, but Louis was more concerned with how on earth he could have thoroughly searched the whole of Holland in two days. Then again, he supposed Harry knew what he was doing. “You want a cuppa?” he offered.

_Cuppa?_ Harry sounded confused.

Louis felt his heart sink at the realization that this poor, lonely creature had never had a cup of tea. “A…a cup of tea? I was just about to make some.” As if to punctuate his words, the kettle clicked and finished boiling, bubbling merrily away behind him. It was a sound he was familiar with, one that never failed to comfort him, because it meant that warmth and relaxation was only a clink of a teaspoon away.

_Okay._

Sliding out from between Harry and the kitchen unit, Louis opened the fridge, sniffed the milk, decided with relief that it hadn’t gone off, and retrieved the sugar bowl from on top of the dishwasher. Harry watched him in silence, until Louis turned to him.

“Sugar?” he asked, as he added milk to both mugs without even looking. He hardly needed to. The art of making tea was one he had perfected.

The tone of Harry’s thoughts immediately became distressed, like a deer in the headlights. He struggled for a few moments, hesitating, unsure of what he was supposed to say. It must have been awful for him, to be so unused to human interaction that he didn’t even know how to react to being asked how many sugars he wanted in his tea.

“I usually take two,” Louis suggested kindly.

Harry’s nod was jerky and a little too fast.  _Two. Please._

With the tinkle of a teaspoon against the sides of the mug, Louis made the two cups of almost identical tea, and then, for courtesy’s sake, offered Harry the mug which didn’t have a huge chip on it. He’d broken so much crockery lately that he was rather limited on options. He gave Harry the unbroken, perfectly dignified blue and white striped mug. His own cup, however, a present from his sisters, was, to his chagrin, a Disney Princess cup. He blew on the tea to cool it and rested his lips on the brim, lower lip pressed against the top Jasmine’s head, but didn’t drink, choosing to watch Harry instead.

Luckily, Harry wouldn’t have known a Disney Princess if she’d run up to him and bellowed ‘A Whole New World’ right into his ear, and he was staring into the depths of his cup as if the secrets of the universe were swirling around with the tea leaves. Eventually, he lifted it to his mouth and took an enormous gulp of scalding hot tea even as Louis belatedly thought to warn him “careful, it’s ho –”

Harry’s response was instantaneous; he didn’t cry out loud, but a jolt of pain came crashing through the mental link, a hot, sharp sting on Louis’ tongue, and he flinched. Instantly, he removed his mouth from the mug, and then gave Louis an extremely injured look, like he thought Louis had given him the beverage with the intention of making him burn himself. Holding the tea away from himself at arms’ length, Harry stuck out his tongue, a bright pink flash against his pale complexion, and almost went cross-eyed trying to look at it and see if there was a visible mark. The long fingers of his free hand curled around the column of his throat, as if to soothe it, and he squinted at his tongue like he was expecting it to start bleeding.

It ought to have been funny, if a little sad, to see what appeared to be a boy in his late teens looking at his own poked-out tongue like a confused four year old – but the sight of that little pointed tongue made Louis go weak at the knees for a moment, a knot of heat coiling in his belly.

“Here,” he said quickly to distract himself. “Watch.” Putting his cup down, he took Harry’s from him, made eye contact, and then blew gently on the tea to cool it. After he’d done that a couple of times, he handed it back, suggesting, “don’t drink quite so much of it in one go, yeah?”

Accepting the cup, Harry painstakingly blew on the surface of the tea, and then became fascinated by the ripples. He stood puffing his breath out and watching the liquid churn like water in a current for several minutes, until he seemed to remember where he was. Embarrassed, he brought the mug to his lips.

Louis had expected him to be suspicious, or at least to seem a little more wary drinking his tea this time, but apparently the burn had already been forgotten, even though Louis could still feel the heavy thickness of Harry’s sore tongue through the mental link. It was an odd sensation, the transmission of phantom pain even though he could feel his own tongue running over his lips as he licked them, and knew that there was nothing wrong with it. Completely trustingly, Harry took a sip, and then another – and then his eyes lit up, and he gave Louis another of those sunny, totally unrestrained grins that made his heart stutter.

“D’you wanna sit down?” he offered, taking a gulp of his own drink to steady his nerve.

_Okay._

Harry walked slowly and tentatively, like he was uncertain of quite how his own body worked. Every step was careful and he watched his feet as he walked, like he had to look at the ground to be sure whether to place them. Sitting on Louis’ sofa, he looked up at the symbols which, after a little mental nudge, Louis had painted all over his wall, and an expression that Louis couldn’t identify crossed his face. Looking away from the marks, his face went blank, leaving Louis to wonder whether he had simply lost control of the unfamiliar muscles for a moment or whether he was now simply controlling his expression.

Louis sat next to him, a socially acceptable distance away, and they quietly drank their tea for a while. Louis felt that he should say something, but he wasn’t sure what, and it wasn’t exactly an uncomfortable silence, so he let it stay. It was nice and peaceful.

“Was Holland nice?” he asked eventually. It sounded odd. People didn’t just visit Holland, they visited a specific place – a country, a city…

_Yes. It’s different from here._ Almost as soon as he’d said the words which Louis had interpreted as being completely harmless, humiliation crashed through the room, a haze of bright red that he could feel burning in his cheeks and gut. It made him flinch, the unexpected torrent of emotions – not only did he have no choice but to experience what Harry was feeling at any given time, but the feelings were all so much more intense than his own. It was unnerving.  _I – I mean – I like here! Here is nice. I didn’t mean it was nice because it was different from here –_ agonized, Harry struggled to rectify himself.

“Hey, it’s okay, I know what you meant,” Louis said quickly, and he wondered whether he ought to touch him. A friendly pat on the leg, maybe, to calm him down.

It wasn’t needed; Harry’s horror vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced with relief. His rapid mood swings made Louis feel dizzy.  _Okay. I like Holland. It’s nice to see different places and people._

“Yeah,” agreed Louis, although the furthest he’d even travelled was Brighton for a really crap seaside holiday where the food had been limp and tasteless, adequate at best, and it had drizzled continuously for the whole week, leaving his whole family in a temperament as dull and lifeless as the weather. “You’re lucky to be able to move around a lot. You don’t have to stick around in one place. That must be nice, to see everywhere, whenever you want.”

_I’d like a home better,_ admitted Harry.  _To know I would be missed. To go back somewhere and know that people would be happy I had come back. No one knows when I’m anywhere, really. I don’t have any attachments._

“Well, you must be  _from_ somewhere. Where do you live?”

Harry sent several mental images in quick succession; a moist, melancholy cave filled with slimy moss where every movement echoed mournfully off the walls; an empty house with cracked walls and windows, which smelt of dust and mould; a barn without even any hay bales in it, just an empty dark space with the lingering scent of horses…

“No, where’s your home?”

_I don’t have a home. I sleep wherever is empty and…comfortable._ Faint amusement flickered across the link, black humour at the idea of any of the places he had mentioned being comfortable.

Troubled, Louis pressed, “But where do you come from? You can’t always have lived this way. People don’t just  _exist_  – they’re born somewhere, they come from a place.”

_I’m not ‘people’._ Mutinously, Harry wrenched his mind away from Louis’, trying to separate them – he couldn’t entirely manage it; a thin thread still stretched between their consciousnesses, the contact faint and hazy, but Louis could still dimly sense that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Would you like a biscuit?” he asked weakly. It was the best way of changing the subject he could think of at such short notice.

_I don’t know. I’ve never had one before._ Would  _I like it?_

He hadn’t quite understood the question, and Louis was left bewildered as to how he was supposed to respond. “Um.”

_I’m sorry,_ apologised Harry immediately, shame flooding through them both. Fighting to distinguish his own emotions from the other boy’s, Louis struggled to try and push calmness back through the link, to reassure him that it was okay. Harry became upset so quickly when he made a mistake or confused Louis with his mannerisms, and Louis was trying so hard to help him understand that it was okay to get things wrong. He tried to radiate that feeling, imagining it filling the room, and Harry’s tense shoulders seemed to loosen a little – although that might not have been Louis’ influence so much as his own acknowledgement of what the human was thinking.

“I’ll go and get you a biscuit, and you can try one and tell me if you like it,” Louis said kindly. He smiled.

Harry beamed ecstatically back, excitement making Louis’ own smile grow. Every response Harry had was so ridiculously enthusiastic; clearly he hadn’t learnt how to hold anything back, and all of his emotions were so  _powerful._ As he headed through to the kitchen and hoped that Niall  _hadn’t_  eaten all of his biscuits, he felt lightheaded, his chest filled with happiness. He wasn’t even sure which of them it came from. But this was one of the few times he remembered feeling included, like he was a part of something, like he was  _wanted_ there. The boy in the other room was pleased by his presence, wanted him to come back. It felt good.

The phone started ringing, a shrill, wailing bleep, and he stood on his toes to get the biscuit jar down off the top of the cupboard where he’d hidden it before hurrying through to answer it. On the other side of the room, Harry was watching him with interest, so Louis held up the jar apologetically, put it down on the table behind him and then picked up the phone.

“Hello?” Niall asked cautiously.

“Hi!”

“…You sound…better.”

“I certainly am,” Louis said happily. It was amazing how much less edgy was now that he had a (pretty) face to put to the nightmare that had been tailing him for weeks. The nightmare that wasn’t so much of a nightmare anymore. Coiling the phone cord around his finger, he continued, “listen, what I said – I’m sorry. I had a bit of a breakdown. It was a long day.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Niall replied dismissively, “I’m over that.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure I’d be exactly the same if Slenderman was chasing me. Plays havoc with your emotions. I’m amazed you didn’t turn into a dribbling wreck right there in the street – like that mad woman, in the movie, yeah?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Do I look like a gibbering middle-aged housewife to you?”

“Not last time I checked…don’t sound like it, either.” Losing his teasing edge, Niall asked anxiously, “are you sure you’re okay? Charlotte said I shouldn’t have let you run off – said it wasn’t safe, like. ‘Niall,’ she says to me, ‘you should have followed him home and not let him alone for an instant, else Slendy’ll have got him.’ And I says, ‘yeah, well, easier said than done, cos he was pretty mad at me.’ So she goes, ‘how could anyone be mad at you?’ and then she, and then we, yeah.”

He could almost  _hear_ Niall’s blush, and Louis rolled his eyes again and pretended to vomit at the realization that he’d narrowly missed being told some of the gory details of Niall’s sex life. He felt Harry’s concern from the other side of the room, and soothed him instantly; it was becoming easier all the time to convey his own emotions in the way that Harry did involuntarily, and Louis used that to reassure him and explain that it was a joke. His confusion vanished almost immediately, and sudden amusement piqued in appreciation of the mime, but then Louis hastily had to return his attention to the conversation.

“ – and anyway, I figured you didn’t wanna talk to me, cos you were kinda pissed, but I had to make sure he  _hadn’t_ got you.”

“I’m fine, Niall,” Louis promised.

“Listen, Charlotte was saying to me, she knows a couple of protection rituals she got out of this book, and we’ve been watching this TV series, Supernatural, and those guys seem to know their stuff. It’s all been researched, and stuff, I mean, the actual show itself isn’t real, obviously, but the rituals and all that are legit, and we could come over and do some stuff, and make sure he stays away from you.”

His first reaction was panic. Louis had to fight to try and stay calm at the thought of Niall and his annoying girlfriend (who, in Louis’ mind, was a featureless blob in a skirt with bright red hair covering her face like Cousin It) bursting in to find Slenderman sat on his couch eating biscuits and having afternoon tea with him. Over on said sofa, Harry sent a questioning thought over to him, but Louis decided that putting Niall off had to be his priority.

“Oh, Niall, please. I’m fine, honestly. Don’t make a big fuss, okay? Look – all that stuff that was going on, it’s all stopped now. I reckon I was just overreacting. I was tired, and you were egging me on, and a couple of coincidences went on and I got carried away.”

“Oh, no, don’t start denying it again. You  _know_ there’s something funny going on, Louis. I get that you’re scared, and I get that you don’t want to believe that you’re in danger cos it’s scary and you don’t know what to do, I get that, but you can’t just  _ignore_ –”

God, Niall and his persistence would be the death of him! It was sweet that his friend was so desperately concerned that he wouldn’t take no for an answer, but it was also extremely aggravating, and if Louis hadn’t been so panicky he would have already lost his temper.

“Niall, please.”

“You have to listen to me!”

“I’ve listened! All I’ve ever done is listen. Think of all the times I listened to you – the ghost in your flat that was really the boiler, and the vampire caretaker, and that insomniac in our maths class that you were convinced was a zombie, and tell me one time you were actually right about  _any_ of that stuff.” Louis felt horrible for bringing all of that up, knowing that each failed monster-hunting attempt was a source of painful embarrassment for Niall, and especially because he was actually  _right_  this time – but behind him, curled up on the sofa, was a little secret he was only just getting to know, but who he thought had the potential to be a good friend. The last thing he wanted was Niall and Charlotte coming round and scaring him away.

On the other end of the line, Niall had fallen silent. Louis could imagine him all too well; eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose, the tips of his ears red with humiliation, breathing heavily in and out. Sure enough, he could hear the crackle of feedback from each of those breaths, making him wince.

“I’m sorry, mate, but really, I’m not willing to make an idiot of myself this time, not – not when I almost lost it because I took you too seriously and it messed me up in the head. I mean –” he laughed, a surprisingly natural-sounding laugh, perhaps because he allowed just for a second his own disbelief at the ridiculousness of this situation to surface, “Slenderman isn’t  _real._ ”

Harry was confused; Louis could feel a frown being conveyed through the mental link, and he held up a hand as a signal to wait.

“You’re sure there’s nothing going on? You aren’t just saying that to placate me?”

“Positive.”

“…Okay,” Niall sighed eventually, “I’ll take your word for it. I don’t wanna be annoying. But you’ll let me know, if – if you start to feel differently about that.”

“Of course. Who else would I ring?”

He knew that would cheer Niall up, being acknowledged as both an important person in Louis’ life and also as somewhat of an expert on ghosts and other phenomena, and therefore the first port of call if something supernatural occurred. Sure enough, Niall seemed far happier when he said, “Thanks, Lou. Anyway, better go. Charlotte and I are marathon-ing Supernatural and we’re just about to start season six – fuck, she’s the best girlfriend in the world,” he whispered appreciatively, “she brought  _tacos._ ”

Louis couldn’t keep the grin off his face. Niall wasn’t hard to please. “Alright, mate, have fun.”

“Bye!”

No sooner had Louis replaced the phone than Harry asked,  _Why did you say I wasn’t real? I_ am  _real. I’m sat right here talking to you. I’m real._

Louis hoped he hadn’t hurt his feelings. “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t want Niall and his annoying girlfriend coming around and attacking you, cos they seem to think life is a low-budget monster movie. I’m –” he turned around to continue talking, and frowned as his gaze settled on the table, where he had placed the full jar of biscuits before he’d picked up the phone.

Louis looked up. On the sofa, Harry sat with his legs crossed. His feet were bare, and he’d taken off the jacket of his grimy suit and draped it over the arm of the sofa, so that he was wearing a greyish shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the first three buttons hanging off, unfastened. He was sitting directly in the light of the living room window, so he should have been aglow with sunlight washing over him, but his whole body was draped in shadows as if he were sat in almost complete darkness. The shadows were supple and kept moving almost involuntarily, like a familiar movement he was barely aware of, twitching occasionally. They lapped at his moonbeam skin like black waves. But the reason Louis was staring was not the suit, nor the pretty translucency of his skin, but the fact that he was cradling the now half-empty biscuit jar in his lap, his eyes alight with joy, and his cheeks straining from the sheer amount of biscuits in his mouth.

As Louis watched him, Harry swallowed all the biscuits in one gulp (a remarkable feat) and then grinned at him, a flash of white teeth and bright pink lips sprinkled with crumbs.

“Am I to take it that you like biscuits, then?” asked Louis weakly.

Harry’s voice was a low, contented hum that reverberated pleasantly through his mind.  _Yes._

“Well,” Louis replied, unable to keep his own enormous grin under control, “I suppose I’d better get some more in, then, hadn’t I?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight mention of a non-consensual sex, not between Harry and Louis

Louis didn’t even bother knocking on Niall’s door; he just walked right in to the smell of something warm and delicious, almost falling over a haphazard stack of fanzines for some monster movie franchise Niall was crazy over. He’d known that the front door would be unlocked as always – Niall had one hundred and one weird and wonderful gizmos strung up all over the premises which were intended to keep ghouls and evil creatures out, but he had not one single precaution against a good old fashioned burglar.

Wandering into the kitchen, skirting around piles of mess (his own home wasn’t exactly the paragon of cleanliness, but at least he knew where everything was and had left ample space for moving round in between his piles of stuff) Louis was greeted by the sight of Niall sat at his kitchen table with an enormous plate full of pancakes, his cheeks stuffed full of them in a way which reminded Louis of Harry’s adorable biscuit-guzzle the other day. He waved his fork in greeting, then proceeded to take a slurp of coffee out of a beer glass – through a straw.

Rolling his eyes, Louis went to sit down on the other chair only to find himself sitting on a pair of shoes. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that they were a pair of grape purple converse, far too small to fit Niall, and someone had doodled little pink gel-pen hearts all over the rubber. Raising his eyebrows, Louis immediately came to the conclusion that Niall’s girlfriend was quite clearly the kind of person who drew hearts on her shoes – and promptly imagined a flouncy, fluffy _Annie_ lookalike; flaming red pigtails tied up in ribbons, cheesy grin, frilly pink skirt blowing around. He wrinkled his nose and dropped the shoes, then pretended to have an itch when he realized Niall was looking at him.

“So where’s your girlfriend?” Louis asked. “She won’t be getting very far without her shoes. And can I have some of that?” He eyed Niall’s plate of pancakes.

Niall, being the sort of person who never shared his food under any circumstances but was quite willing to let anyone use his kitchen, pointed at the pancake ingredients he’d left on the kitchen unit and said “Sure, knock yourself out. And she’s out with her friends. Shopping. Or marathoning _Sex And The City._ Or whatever it is girls do.”

Only Niall could come up with an adjective of the word ‘marathon’. Rolling his eyes, Louis headed over to the hob and started making himself pancakes.

“So how does it feel to have departed the valley of the single and be riding the _lurve_ train?” Louis teased.

He’d left an extremely wide opening for Niall to make some stupid joke about that not being the only thing he was riding, but Niall’s expression had become dreamy – and not just the sort of bliss that usually crossed his face when he was eating pancakes. His fork stopped halfway to his mouth, heaped with slices of pancake, but he seemed to have forgotten that he was eating them. That was almost unheard of.

“You know,” Niall said happily, “it’s still early days, I guess...but she stayed over last night, for the first time. Maybe we’re rushing it, I mean, I don’t think so. But I woke up this morning, and she wasn’t in bed. So I go downstairs, look all over for her. And I find her asleep on the sofa in just her underwear and a really baggy hoodie, half a bowl of cereal on the floor, make-up still on, and the Xbox is on. She’d been playing FIFA all night – and that’s so cool. Cos you can tell she’s a girl gamer not just because guys like it, but because _she_ likes it. I think – don’t tell her I said this, cos I don’t wanna creep her out if she thinks I’m coming on too strong – but I think she might be the one.”

Louis smiled tolerantly. Niall hadn’t had many girlfriends, but he tended to attach himself to them with puppy-like devotion when he did – this wasn’t the first time Louis had heard this speech from him. “She exactly fits your idea of the perfect girlfriend, I’ll give her that. Girl gamer, funny, conspiracy nerd, loves food, gives you a total run for your money, conspiracy theory movie nerd...you sure you haven’t dreamed her up? Want me to pinch you?” he teased.

Holding his arm out, Niall pinched himself in response and stuck out his syrupy tongue. Pretending to shudder in disgust, Louis turned back to the stove.

“I can see if she’s got any hot friends, if you like.”

Louis’ eyebrows raised so much that he was almost surprised his skin didn’t rip with the strain.

“A _guy,_ obviously,” Niall reiterated, eyes rolling like marbles.

“Nah, you’re alright,” sniffed Louis, imagining the kind of friends someone who sounded as annoying as Charlotte might have. He blanched at the thought of one of Niall’s floppy-haired geek buddies turning up at his house to seduce him in a monotone – being dirty-talked by one of them would be like getting Siri to read your sexts for you. “I think I can survive for a little longer as a lonely, sex-starved reject, wandering this earth without someone to suck my cock.” _And only a little longer will I have to, by all accounts._

Niall shrugged. “Your loss, man.” He returned to his pancakes.

 

~*~

 

Louis and Harry settled into a comfortable routine soon after that. Comfortable, but not exactly predictable.

The timing of Harry’s visits was not quite regular as clockwork, but halfway there. He would turn up every day sometime between 3 o’clock and half past four in the afternoon. Apart from that, however, it was all one big guessing game.

Sometimes, most notably towards the beginning of the arrangement, Harry would be noticeably eager to leave. He would consent to stay for long enough to announce where he had been and that thus far he had had been unsuccessful in his search, to drink a cup of tea and eat copious amounts of Louis’ biscuits, then hastily excuse himself on the allegation that he was extremely busy and had no time to linger and make conversation, when Louis’ soul mate was wandering around somewhere waiting to be found. Louis never argued – it was in his best interests to let Harry rush off and continue the search, after all – but he was always left feeling rather wistful afterwards.

Other times, however, Harry would stay for hours on end. He was fascinated by the television; no matter what was on, he’d sit watching it without pause for hour after hour, not seeming to care what he was watching, merely enjoying the spectacle of people moving across the screen. Louis had actually seen him watch back-to-back Jeremy Kyle for hours on end, without seeming to process what was going on but greatly enjoying it anyway – although his favourites were kid’s cartoon shows, with their bright colours and simple storylines that made more sense to him than a group of chavs squeezed up on a sofa bitching about pregnancies and who’d slept with whose brother and whatnot.

He also liked to talk. Sometimes he struggled to keep up a conversation (well, he hadn’t had much opportunity over the years to practice making small-talk) but Louis had the gift of the gab and was almost always able to keep it going, and Harry quickly acquired the knack. He had a dry sense of humour and a natural aptitude for sarcasm, and although there were a few instances where he had difficulty understanding what Louis was saying, the ability to exchange emotions and mental pictures came in useful when it came to making him understand. Before long, he and Louis’ discussions lasted late into the night, and Louis would end up reluctantly asking him to leave so that he could sleep.

They were fascinating conversations. Harry was well-travelled, and although his stories were often rambling narrations that took ages to recount and seemed to have little point by the end, Louis found himself enjoying listening to them. Harry was able to tell him – and show him, through memories – about hundreds of places he’d visited, and Louis eagerly drank in his experiences, wishing he had a few of his own to share. Although his own life seemed pitifully mundane in comparison, Harry seemed to revel in the dull details of his everyday existence, from grocery shopping to lessons at university. Their enthralment with each other meant that they never seemed to tire of each other’s company. At times, Louis almost forgot that Harry had only come into his life because he was supposed to be finding him a boyfriend.

He got the impression that sometimes, Harry forgot that as well. One time, when they’d been sitting together for hours laughing over the time a group of kids in Texas who were a tad too invested in TV shows had recognized Harry’s presence and attempted to ward him off with salt, garlic and a silver chain, Louis had been laughing maybe a little harder than was strictly necessary when he’d realized that Harry was staring at him.

Flooding with embarrassment, Harry had looked away, his cheeks still bloodless as if it hadn’t occurred to him to blush. His reaction confused Louis, who chose to tactfully pretend it hadn’t happened...but once Harry had left, he wondered. His thoughts kept him awake for hours while he dwelt helplessly over the conundrum without any answers revealing themselves.

 

~*~

 

They were sat together having tea, as usual, on one completely unobtrusive Sunday afternoon. At first, they had sat quite far apart on the sofa, but as the weeks went on they had gravitated closer and closer together – Louis did not quite dare to initiate physical contact between them, afraid that Harry would either be insulted, startled or perhaps become upset, and he didn’t want to drive him away. Therefore, he sat close enough to Harry that with the slightest shift of his leg, he could have brushed their thighs together, rubbing the denim of his jeans against the smooth cotton of Harry’s black trousers, but far enough away to be sure that he didn’t do it by accident. He longed to, partly to see how Harry would react and partially because he was always so insufferably curious. He wanted to see what Harry felt like; whether his human form had any substance or was a mere illusion, whether his hands would pass right through the other boy like he was a ghost if they tried to touch.

They were sat closely beside each other, close enough for Harry to be able to clearly see the faint traces of stubble around Louis’ jaw where he had shaved too hastily and missed a bit, for Louis to be able to see the different flecks of green in his friend’s eyes. The silence was comfortable, interrupted only by soft munching and the occasional slurp of tea – but Louis was filled with tension, because he had a question to ask.

Ever since their first meeting, he’d wanted to know more about the boy beside him. Now, Harry had been visiting daily for a little over a month, and Louis had trusted him with a thousand and one minute details about his life in the past few weeks, throwing him little snippets of information until Harry could almost have been considered an expert on Louis’ home life. He had done this in the hope that it would inspire a sense of trust, and that Harry would see fit to impart some of his own personal information on Louis in return. Also, because, quite frankly, Harry’s attentions were extremely flattering. Apparently incapable of multitasking, he became intently focused on one thing to the exclusion of all others whenever it required his attention, and so, when Louis was talking Harry would stare at him in utter rapture, absorbing every word that left his lips, tea and biscuits forgotten, and although he did not consider himself a vain person, Louis enjoyed the attention. Well, who wouldn’t? No one had ever seemed so interested in him before; he did not think he was very interesting, but Harry seemed to disagree, watching him with the same excitement as he did the television.

But no matter how many morsels of information Louis offered up for Harry to devour, none was ever forthcoming in return, and he was inquisitive by nature. He liked to have answers, to understand things; in school, he had never been the most academic of students due to his lack of persistence when it came to rote memorisation and studying, but he had always sought to understand things. It had been a hindrance, sometimes, when the other students in his maths class were quite happy – well, perhaps _happy_ was the wrong word – to attempt to answer the questions with the equation they had been taught, whereas Louis was doggedly pestering the teacher to explain to him _why_ that was the answer. He didn’t like to accept that it just _was._ This was just the same; he refused to simply accept that Harry had come from somewhere, and wanted to know where. After all the time they had known each other, all of the things Louis had told Harry about himself, he felt entitled to some answers in return. Perhaps he should have made it more clear that he expected some sort of repayment for all the stories he had told Harry, but Harry seemed none the wiser. Unless he was just pretending not to know that Louis burned with questions about him, because he didn’t want to answer them.

“May I ask you a question, Harry?” he said hesitantly.

After teaching Harry as many new words and terms as he could, which was always a work in progress, as on his travels Harry often found new words to ask him the meaning of, he had undertaken the challenge of making sure Harry’s grammar was on par, since he didn’t want any simple errors to leave either of them confused and upset Harry with his ignorance. He had never been fantastic at English, but his grammar was excellent, and having been victim several times of asking “can I?” to Harry and being smugly answered, “I don’t know, _can_ you?” he was always sure to leave no room for Harry to tease him. For someone who had had so little human interaction, he wielded sarcasm with sharp precision. (Then again, it was _Louis_ he’d been interacting with, and Louis used sarcasm like it was his first language.)

 _You may._ Harry treated him to one of his brilliant smiles, bright and dazzling, and all the more forthcoming these days, but always a shock nonetheless. Louis swallowed and hoped that Harry hadn’t registered the sudden increase in his heartbeat.

“Do you promise you won’t be angry with me, once I ask my question?”

He could have pointed out that a question had already been asked, and Louis could tell that he considered it, but apparently his own expression was beseeching enough for Harry to decide not to tease him. _I don’t think I can. I cannot control my emotions, Louis._

“Alright – well, then will you promise to _try_ to not be angry with me?”

Harry shrugged. _I can try._

“Thank you. I know we’ve sort of been over this before, but where do you _come_ from, Harry? How were you born? None of this ‘I just _am_ ’ business either, if you don’t mind; everyone comes from somewhere, and I just want to know. I’ve told you plenty of stuff about me. Now it’s your turn.”

Looking amused, Harry said gently, _Correct me if I’m wrong, but amongst humans, could that question not be considered as ‘nosy’?_

Louis blushed, but his curiosity won out over his chagrin. “It could. However, I could also be considered to be entitled to some answers, seeing as I’ve been letting you into my house and giving you food and trusting you with a whole lot of really personal stuff. I mean, you could be some sort of –”

He hastily cut himself off before the word ‘freak’ could fall off his tongue.

“Well, you could be anyone. How do I know I can trust you?”

_We communicate psychically._

“Your point being?”

 _If I lied to you, then you would know about it. You would hear it in my mind. We hear each other’s thoughts, Louis,_ Harry reminded him, then added kindly, _I don’t mind if you call me a freak. I am one._

“No, you aren’t,” Louis said fiercely, with such conviction that he felt Harry’s surprise emanating through them both. “And you’re right. I don’t have an excuse – I am nosy, I always have been. I like to understand things. And I want to know where you came from.”

Harry licked his lips. It had been happing so gradually that it had escaped Louis’ notice, but slowly, Harry was beginning to adopt human mannerisms, many of them belonging to Louis, mirroring Louis’ own little quirks because he didn’t know how to develop them by himself. Now, this nervous glide of his pink tongue over those rosy lips made Louis’ belly squeeze, and he fought to override the sensation.

 _There isn’t much to tell, really,_ he said slowly. _I was born in the dark. At night, in an alley._

A quick brush of his mind more closely against Louis’, and all of a sudden Louis was there – plunged into darkness, experiencing a memory far clearer than any of his own had ever been. A street dimly lit by orange street-lamps, their flat, artificial glow casting wobbly shadows everywhere. A shadow cast by some rubbish bins hid them from passers-by. It smelt dank and disgusting, like someone had been using the alley as a toilet. They were cradled in a pair of skinny arms, being held so tightly that it hurt. Long dark hair tickling their face, a curtain as someone bent over them. He could feel confusion, hear someone crying, a female voice, whimpering in shock – and then a short, sharp scream, and Harry flinched and the memory was snatched back as he buried it deeply back into his mind.

_I don’t know much about what happened. I remember...bits. The woman did not want me, obviously. Who would? I can only assume she didn’t plan to have me. I don’t know how she even became pregnant with someone like me, but it can’t have been a pleasant experience. She gave birth to me, and screamed, and called the police. Then she left me on the ground and ran away._

Louis’ breath hitched in his throat and seemed to block his airways. Harry spoke with little emotion, and Louis had not failed to notice how he distanced himself from his birth mother by calling her ‘the woman’ and not ‘my mother’, but even though Harry was determinedly not allowing himself to be swallowed up by the memories, what he had not already seen his imagination could quite easily provide.

He couldn’t get a clear mental image of the woman, because the memory was murky and her face was blurred – Louis couldn’t figure out whether it was so hazy because it was such a faint memory or whether Harry hadn’t been able to see properly because he wasn’t in his human form, and how do you see _anything_ without eyes? But he could feel Harry’s terror, a baby monster born into a confusing world where his mother was repulsed by the very sight of him – his skin so sensitive that as she held him he could feel her pulse slamming against the skin of her wrists, pounding against his own skin. He felt Harry cringe as she screamed, a blast of heavy hot air in his face, laden with terror. But he didn’t cry, because he had no mouth. He was silent, faceless, a strange alien thing, and he could picture the dreadful scene so painfully well. The sobbing, petrified young woman laying the _thing_ on the floor, her hands shaking as she pulled out her phone and called the police. Then getting up and fleeing, leaving the child lying on the gravel without so much as a coat to cover it. Hoping it would die, maybe. Louis felt a stab of anger, but also pity. How terrible, to give birth to something without even knowing what it was, and he was already getting the idea that the impregnation hadn’t been consensual.

Harry sat stiffly, his fingers gripping the handle of his delicate china teacup so hard that it had crumbled to dust, and bits of china clung to his fingertips like flour.

Louis was beginning to understand, now. How lonely it must feel, for your own mother to be disgusted by the sight of you the second you were born, to leave you to die on the street. He had more questions now than ever, weighed down with them; how had Harry survived after that? What had the police done when they found him? How had he got away from them and started this new life as a nomad, travelling the world to unite people who could not possibly be as lonely as he was. Most of all, had that been the only touch he had ever felt? The disgusted cling of a woman who was frightened of him and who couldn’t wait to get her hands away from him?

It made Louis want to change that. He felt a sudden urge to reach out and place his hand on Harry’s skinny leg, rub a soothing pattern with his thumb. His heart was pounding stupidly loudly and Harry could probably hear every thought running through his head but he had fallen silent, his own head bowed, long curls falling over his face. They needed cutting, really, just a little trim, but at the same time Louis hated the idea of anyone lopping even a millimetre of silky brown off the ends. Surely it wouldn’t be so much of a big deal to place a hand on him, or to trace the seam of his dirty trousers with one fingertip?

It _would_ be a big deal, to be the first person to touch him without disgust, and Louis knew that, but somehow he couldn’t resist the urge anyway. Unbidden, his hand left his own thigh and began drifting slowly towards Harry’s. His fingers twitched slightly as they moved towards the motionless figure beside him, who was staring at the cup he’d broken with blank green eyes like glass bottles, reflecting the light, but empty and devoid of emotion. That only made him want to touch Harry more, to bring him back to himself and wake him up, to see something stir in those awful empty eyes. His hand was moving closer and closer, shaking a little, taking it slowly but he was so close now, mere millimetres away. He could feel the heat of Harry’s body and how close he was to touching him. Every movement was slow and careful, like Harry was an animal he was about to stoke and he didn’t want to spook him –

Harry got to his feet in a whirl of movement so fast that Louis wasn’t entirely sure it was natural. Perhaps some of the shadows came to his aid and lifted him a little faster, but however it was he did it, one moment he was sat beside Louis looking like a shop mannequin, still, cold, with empty eyes, and the next he was off the sofa and standing halfway across the room, hunched over slightly as if to sink into a predatory crouch, looking mistrustfully at Louis. In response, Louis’ heart sunk. Without even touching Harry, the mere intention of doing so had crossed a line that clearly Harry didn’t want him to cross.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

He tried to convey his apology emotionally as well, but something in Harry had shut down. He seemed to somehow be blocking Louis out, keeping him from communicating properly. Louis hadn’t realized how dependent he was on the mental link between them to be able to talk to him. Without it, he couldn’t be sure how any of his words were being received, and it made him uncomfortable. Afraid to say anything more for fear of affronting Harry and not being able to apologise properly, he fell into a tactful silence.

 _It’s fine,_ Harry said flatly, proving once and for all that it definitely wasn’t. _I have to go now. I want to finish checking China by Wednesday._

Heart sinking, Louis hastily said “Harry, I – I didn’t mean to upset you! I’m sorry, I –”

 _It’s_ fine, _Louis,_ Harry said sharply. _I have to go now._

“Are you –”

_I have to go now._

Sighing, Louis rubbed his eyes with a sudden onslaught of exhaustion. No matter what he did or said now, Harry was just going to stand there repeating that short sentence over and over until Louis let him go. For someone so eager to please, he could be inordinately stubborn.

“Okay,” he said tiredly. “Okay. Will you – will you be here tomorrow?” It had only just dawned on him how much he’d upset Harry, and he was suddenly filled with dread at the thought that Harry might not want to come back.

A curious expression crossed across Harry’s face – in the absence of the mental link Louis couldn’t be sure, but he thought Harry looked touched that Louis was so bothered by the thought of him not coming back. Then his expression hardened for some reason.

_Tomorrow we’ll meet in the same place. At the same time. I will come back._

Then he was gone with a rustle and the sound of shadows whipping through the air like cloth being blown in the wind, the darkness rising up out of the ground, pouring over his skin and then dissipating and taking him with them.

Exhaustedly, Louis lay down, lolling against the sofa cushions and wondering exactly what he’d got himself into. How had he ever thought that being friends with a teleporting shadow-monster whose true form didn’t even have a face, who got pissy and defensive at the first mention of his past, whose mood swings were unpredictable and alarming and who freaked out whenever he thought he’d made a social faux pas, was a good idea?

And why did he have no intention of giving that friendship up yet?

 


	10. Chapter 10

Harry was late.

That made Louis itch with discomfort. Harry had been back to him, still perfectly punctual, no less than eight times since the memory incident (which they were both electing to pretend had never happened, although Louis couldn’t seem to help it popping up in his mind at the most inconvenient times) so he was sure it was nothing to do with that. Nor could he think of any other way in which he could have or had upset Harry since that event; they’d been careful around each other, skirting neatly around any dangerous topics of discussion and sticking to simple things that couldn’t rile either of them up. Their last conversation had been about football. Harry liked all TV shows; so far they hadn’t found a single thing to watch that he hadn’t been interested in, even the shopping channels, but he was bewildered by football.

_I don’t understand. Why are the sweaty men kicking a ball around a field?_

“Because that’s the point of the game.”

_Is that it?_

“…Yes,” Louis said slowly.

_That’s all that happens?_

“I suppose it is.”

_Do you like it?_

“Yes, I do.”

_Why?_

Flabbergasted, Louis sat staring at him, trying to figure it out.  _Why, indeed?_ Why did he care about a bunch of guys kicking a spherical object around a field? Why did it matter so much? Some strangers with fat pay-packets and muscled legs, messing around with a ball, and he didn’t even fancy any of them, and wasn’t playing himself, so why  _did_ he care? He couldn’t think of a way to describe it, so he sat staring stupidly at Harry, trying to figure it out. For some reason, it made his stomach twist with unease that he couldn’t explain something he’d taken for granted his whole life. Harry asked questions he couldn’t answer and damn, he wanted to answer. He looked away.

_Have I upset you?_ Harry sounded faintly amused.

“ _No,_ ” Louis ground out, frustrated.

Harry’s eyes glinted at him, the same shade of green as wine bottles and making him feel just as hot and hazy as the liquid inside one might, and he smirked, and said nothing.

But that had been yesterday, and Harry hadn’t seemed perturbed by the conversation, so where was he? Louis had never known him to be late before. He’d boiled the kettle over and over, wanting to have the tea ready the instant Harry arrived, but the hands of the clock in his living room were creeping towards five, now, and Harry had never been known to arrive any time later than ten to four. Fidgeting, Louis got up, sat back down, got up again, made himself a cup of tea and then drank it in a rush in case Harry turned up and was offended that Louis had started without him. Why had this made him so edgy?

He didn’t want to seem clingy or anything, but was it unreasonable to be worried when someone had never been late in their life, and was now late by almost an hour? Louis didn’t think so.

Agonisingly slowly, the hands of the clock ticked. Louis tried to kill time – he did the washing up, attempted to clean the kitchen, watched half a minute of about nine TV shows, and ended up switching it off in disgust. He wasn’t Harry; he couldn’t watch  _Bargain Hunt_ without wanting to either throw up, or slide on some tartan slippers, munch a crumpet and begin his transformation from university student to pensioner.

It was twelve minutes past five.

“Damnit,” Louis muttered, and he closed his eyes and started casting his mind out.

He’d never done it before, but thanks to Harry, he knew it was possible for them to touch their minds from within a fair distance. One time, he remembered Harry contacting him whilst he was in Tesco to remind him to buy ‘ _the delicious chocolate sandwich biscuits_ ’ (he meant chocolate bourbons) and Louis didn’t think it could be  _that_ hard to duplicate the feat. If Harry was within range – not that he was sure of what that range was, but he was guessing no more than a few miles – then surely he could speak with him, find out what was going on? It was better than hanging around waiting for him to show up, anyway.

Perhaps it would have helped if he knew what he was doing, rather than just listening as hard as he could and trying to locate Harry. For several minutes Louis sat slumped in his chair, staring glumly at his empty mug, and trying valiantly to work out how to work this connection between them.

He was about to give up when he felt a sudden flash of panic. Panic that wasn’t his own.

Sitting bolt upright in his seat, Louis frowned deeply and closed his eyes, listening harder. It had been an echo, barely perceptible and he wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been straining so hard to hear something, but he definitely hadn’t imagined it. Gripping the arms of his chair, Louis concentrated, and felt another sudden wave of desperation pulse through him.

_Harry?_

Louis fought to make himself heard, but he’d never been able to get the knack of communicating verbally. It made him feel utterly useless, to be trying so hard to understand what was wrong and getting nothing, but Harry wasn’t letting him in – whether it was deliberate or a mere instinct brought on by his fright was impossible to tell, but it alarmed Louis. He felt like he was banging on a locked door, bellowing to be let in, and nobody was listening.

But he was by no means ready to give up. Rather than attempting to speak with Harry, he changed tactics, this time trying to look through Harry’s eyes and determine where he was. This was still a challenge, because Harry’s blind panic kept uprooting him and throwing him out of his mind whenever he started getting somewhere. However, he was able to catch enough hazy glimpses and pieces of scenery to recognize his local area, a street-sign, a broken fence from a few blocks away.

_I’m coming to get you,_ Louis promised, however futilely, despite being fully aware that Harry couldn’t hear him. He threw himself out through the front door so fast that he almost forgot to lock it, and then he began to run.

~*~

In high school and college, Louis had been on his local football team and had been pretty fit, all things considered – but university hadn’t been as kind, and he didn’t really have time for that stuff anymore during term time, even if there had been anywhere suitable nearby for him to play. He didn’t fancy a four-mile trek every time he fancied a kick-about, nor did he feel like standing by the garages behind his flat and aimlessly shooting the ball at the corrugated iron doors with their peeling paint. He would have been yelled at for trying, anyway. So he was nowhere near as able-bodied as he used to be.

He managed a flat-out sprint for nearly two streets, then had to double over and pant heavily to get over the heart attack he swore he could feel coming on. He walked, scarlet and breathless, for the next couple of cul-de-sacs, jogged down past the local chip shop and petrol station, and then started running again until he turned down Harvard Avenue and spotted a figure clad in a black suit, on his knees in the middle of the road.

“Harry!”

Harry didn’t look around. Louis staggered over to where he knelt in the road, stopping about a metre away from him, frowning and struggling to catch his breath. Harry’s shoulders were shaking and he didn’t acknowledge Louis, and little whimpers rolled off him, not mental, but little helpless noises escaping from between his bubblegum-pink lips. Louis’ gentle lecture about road-safety died in his throat.

“Harry?” he said softly.

Aware more than ever that Harry’s emotions were prone to erupt in a wild torrent and catch you by surprise, Louis was wary of how fragile his self-restraint could be. He squatted on the ground, not moving any closer, and watched Harry’s shoulders shake, hating to see it but not quite daring to do anything about it.

“Harry,” Louis repeated. “I’m gonna come and sit by you, is that okay? Can I do that?”

A little soft sob, kind of like a hiccup, bubbled in Harry’s throat.

Slowly inching forwards, Louis tried to emanate soothing feelings, but they rebounded off Harry like he had a shield around him, and all that remained was his own desperate misery. It was horrible to hear him making those sounds, like a child crying in pain, and Louis felt like his intestines were being ripped out through his stomach. His hand reached out almost of its own accord to rest upon Harry’s shoulder, and stopped a few centimetres away. This time, Harry had made no move to discourage the action, or to prevent Louis from touching him, but if he was going to react badly to the contact when he was already in such a state of emotional upheaval…

When he reached Harry’s side, Louis took a deep breath, terrified that he was going to find something appalling – Harry looming over a dead body, having destroyed it with his own strength that he tended to underestimate so much, something like that – and then peered anxiously over Harry’s shoulder.

He had been half right.

Harry was hunched over the mangled body of a bird; it was thrashing and trying to croak out desperate screeches. By the looks of it, the creature had been hit by a car; one wing was bent at a hideous,  _wrong_ angle, wrenched out of place with some fragile bones clearly snapped, and its left leg was crushed against the ground. It was bleeding, and as the thing lay frantically convulsing in the throes of death, Harry was staring at it with his mouth open, face sodden with tears, sobbing out loud.

Louis’ tongue flickered out to glide over his lips, wetting them. He wasn’t good with blood, be it human, animal, or especially his own, and he hated to see animals in pain, but somehow he managed to make himself edge forwards and look at it. Its beady eyes met his, and Louis didn’t like birds at all (though he would never wish to see harm to come to one) because he loathed their glassy-eyed stares and hooked claws, but it made his heart convulse horribly to see it suffering like that.

Harry’s head whipped towards him inhumanly quickly.  _Help it,_ he pleaded.

Helplessly, Louis felt his mouth fall open but he couldn’t think of anything to say. “I –”

As he leant over it, angling his head to keep any tears from plopping onto its mangled, writhing body, Harry whispered in a terrible mixture of anger and desperation,  _It was a car. The bird was sat in the road. It was singing. It was happy. It didn’t fly away from me, and it was happy. And then a car came and ran it over and didn’t even stop._ Frightened, he stared at Louis.  _Is it going to die?_

For a moment, Louis was half-tempted to offer the same condolences one would give to a child – promise that it would be just fine, maybe say some platitudes about heaven and pretty white clouds and as many worms as the bird could eat, because half the time Harry had the mentality of a child and so surely he wouldn’t question it, but he couldn’t lie. Maybe there was a heaven, but he didn’t believe in it, and he thought it would be wrong to feed Harry a pack of what he thought to be lies, especially since Harry could see right into his head and would probably know. Besides, Harry had to get used to feeling loss. It was all part of the humanity Louis knew he craved; he had to accept the bad in order to appreciate the good, so Louis squeezed his arm gently and said “Yes.”

Harry closed his eyes and shuddered.  _Help it_ , he begged.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. Even if I was a vet, it’s too badly injured, Harry. Look at it. Half its body is crushed. There’s nothing we can do.”

He realized then that he was touching Harry for the first time. The fabric of his jacket was rough and had those bobbles on the surface that came from being worn too often, and underneath that, Louis could feel warmth emanating from him, and that caught him by surprise. He wasn’t sure why, but he had expected Harry to be cold. Louis felt an urge to touch the velvet skin of his cheek and see if it was as soft as it appeared, seeing as the muscles of his arm were firm. Harry did not react to his touch. Gaze fixated on the dying bird, he was crying more quietly than before, not making a sound as glistening tears rolled down his face like raindrops on marble.

_There is,_ contradicted Harry, and he dragged the back of his hand across his eyes, wiping them. Biting his lower lip so hard that it was turning white, he breathed out, a slow, controlled exhale. Louis stared at him as he felt Harry’s panic slowly fading away as he pushed it back. When he managed to get a handle on it, his self-control was formidable. But maybe it was because he had, in a form of self-defence, been an emotionless, faceless shell for so long that it was easier for him to go back to it in times of panic. When he looked down at the bird, fully in command of himself, his expression was blank and empty; he had retained all of his features but his eyes were as dull and void of feeling as those of a statue. It made a shiver run down Louis’ spine like a trickle of cold water.

Next, Harry closed his eyes, hiding those awful, empty irises like marbles in his eye sockets. His inner calmness was almost infectious, and it reached Louis next, soothing him, slowing his heart so that he felt far less like crying himself, although the bird’s fate was not affecting him anywhere near enough as it had affected Harry. It felt odd to have someone else’s emotions pushed into his head and he struggled against them instinctively for a few moments before relinquishing his control and allowing Harry’s serenity to steal through him. It was remarkable how quickly he went from a deep sinking feeling to being unshakably composed. Rather than worrying, he sat and watched Harry in silence, noticing how a vein in his neck repeatedly flexed with effort despite how collected he looked.

Louis could feel the calmness swirling around them like an invisible fog, tugging lightly at his rampant emotions and dampening them until he was completely at ease. He stared down at the struggling bird, listening to its strangled squawks like a baby crying, and felt a deep sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach - but also acceptance. He had to resign himself to the fact that there was nothing he could do; the creature’s fate was sealed, and he and Harry would sit and watch its life ebb away, see the spark fade from its frightened, beady eyes, watch as its frantic heart give that final desperate thump. It made him extremely sad, but he was no longer afraid. Everything has its end. This thing was just going to end prematurely.

But the mist of calm acceptance that had fallen over Harry and himself was still spreading. As he looked quietly down at the bird, its struggles began to lessen - at first he thought that its body was failing and it was no longer capable of moving, but he quickly came to realise that the abject terror was beginning to fade from its little black eyes. Rather than panic, both at its imminent death and such close proximity to two humans (well, a human and something that looked like one; Louis didn’t know whether birds could tell the difference) with no chance of escape on account of its injuries, it looked every bit as calm as they were. After relaxing both himself and Louis, Harry had given the bird the only thing he could: release from the crippling fear that would only make its death so much harder to bear. In fact, judging by the stillness and silence of the animal, he had also taken away its pain.

Louis and the bird looked at each other.

The bird’s breathing was laboured and heavy. Its ruined chest rose and fell a number of times before eventually, the light, that little spark of life, disappeared from its eyes, leaving them glassy and dull. It almost looked like a toy, mangled and broken in the road. A lump rose in Louis’ throat and got stuck there.

_It didn’t feel any pain, in the end,_ Harry said quietly.  _I didn’t want it to be scared._

A tear brimmed over and rolled down his cheek, glistening as it hung like an icicle from the underside of his chin.

“I know. It was lovely of you. That was a great thing to do, Harry.”

_I didn’t want it to be scared,_ repeated Harry miserably.

They stood in silence, Louis rubbing wide circles on Harry’s back, feeling the curve of his spine underneath his fingers, trying to sooth him with the movement. It took a long time, the two of them kneeling there in silence whilst Louis tried to concentrate equally on the two tasks of comforting Harry and listening out for oncoming traffic so that the two of them didn’t meet the same bloody ending as the bird they were mourning.

Eventually, Harry inhaled, a sharp, ragged sound like cloth tearing, and he straightened up, unfolding from the ground until he stood at his full (pretty impressive) human height. His fists were clenched, nails digging into his skin to help him focus on his composure. After a few more deep breaths, he opened his eyes, and they were placid green pools. There was still something sad lingering about his expression, but he seemed determined to put it behind him, and it was merely the afterthought of misery.

_I finished China,_ Harry announced. His tone was so nonchalant, he might have been talking about a book, or a jigsaw puzzle.

“Any luck?”

He shook his head.  _Unfortunately not. I liked China. The food smelt delicious. I think I like Chinese food._

“Oh, well who doesn’t? Chinese food is divine.”

_You’ve never been to China. How do you know?_

Louis stared at him, one eyebrow raised. “Uh, there’s a takeaway right down the road?”

_What’s that?_

Louis stared even harder. “Good God,” he said softly. “You poor creature. You poor, deprived thing. My God. Right, we’re going to shake things up a bit today – forget the tea, we’re going straight home and I’m going to order a takeaway. Chinese food, whatever kind you want. You cannot  _possibly_ go through life without ever having a Chinese.”

Harry beamed at him.  _Okay._ His face fell and he looked down at the dead bird.  _But should we… what should we do? I don’t want to leave it like that._

“We can bury it, if you like. I’ve got a spade somewhere, and there’s a sort of mud patch round the corner where we could put it.”

Licking his lips, Harry agreed,  _Yes, okay._

~*~

So that was how Louis ended up standing in a patch of slimy mud six streets away from his house, scrabbling futilely in the dirt with a pink plastic spade he’d managed to root out from a box he’d brought from home by accident (Louis moving out and his sisters having a clear-out at the same time, and all of their things ending up in incongruous cardboard boxes had caused some definite confusion in the long-run) while Harry cradled the dead body of the bird, his hands covered in cold red streaks and feathers sticking to them. Louis was kind of glad that Harry was the one to actually carry the bird, because he didn’t like them alive and he was pretty sure they were actually creepier when they were dead.      

It took Louis far longer than he had expected to dig a reasonable-sized hole for a not very large bird, and Harry stood watching in silence as he did so. They laid the creature to rest and buried it quickly, and then Louis patted Harry on the back and was extremely relieved that, thus far, Harry was showing no desire to touch him back yet, because his fingers were coated in congealed bird blood.

They went home and Louis ordered Chinese. Harry imitated his order because he wouldn’t have known Peking duck if it had come back to life and started flapping around on his plate. Harry washed his hands clean, Louis taught him how to make tea, and they sat nibbling prawn crackers and watching  _The Inbetweeners_ on DVD. To Louis’ surprise, he didn’t even have to explain all of the sex jokes.

It was almost nine o’clock when Harry got to his feet and announced that he’d better go. Louis felt a strange pang in his chest and hurriedly suppressed the needy, and slightly confusing urge to ask him to stay just a while longer.

_Thank you for today, Louis._

“That’s all right,” Louis replied, feeling weirdly formal. “I, uh…it was my pleasure.”

_I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean to be late. I just wanted to help the bird._

“Oh, don’t be daft, it’s fine.”

They stood smiling at each other awkwardly, Harry looking confused but content, and Louis feeling sheepish.

All of a sudden, when Louis was about to break the silence – though he had no idea how – Harry rushed forwards and threw his arms around him, burying his face in the crook of Louis’ neck. Stunned, Louis instinctively hugged him back, arms going around his slender torso, hands finding a comfortable purchase on his back. He rubbed his shoulders, feeling the thick threads of his ever-present suit rubbing against his fingertips, and rested his head against Harry’s curly hair. To his surprise, he smelt pleasant, like fresh air, but at the same time, like old books and houses, two smells that for some reason Louis loved. He wanted to kiss the top of his head, and, surprised, pushed back the urge.

They clung to each other, and it dawned on Louis that this was the first hug Harry had ever had, so he probably didn’t want it to end. His breath was warm on Louis’ skin and it felt like fingertips trailing down his neck, goosebumps rising in response. Louis hugged him even harder, their bodies pressing together, and he closed his eyes and smiled, unable to help himself.

The moment passed; Harry alerted him to the fact with a little wriggle, and Louis released him without complaint. Stepping back, Harry looked coyly at him, tilting his head shyly and grinning like a thirteen year old with a crush. A rosy blush, cherry blossom pink, coloured his cheeks. It was lovely. Louis grinned back, his cheeks hurting with the intensity of his expression. His heart pounded a disjointed rhythm in his chest.

_I’ll see you tomorrow,_ Harry whispered, and gave a little giggle for reasons Louis couldn’t identify. Then he twirled around like a ballerina, eyes sparkling with mischief. He’d unfastened his jacket and it billowed around him, soon to be joined by a whirlwind of shadows. They encompassed him all of a sudden, filling the room with darkness, and when they disappeared leaving nothing but silence and a cool breeze in their place, Louis rubbed his chest, around the place where his heart was thumping so desperately, and felt a blush leap to his own cheeks.

“See ya,” he said softly.


	11. Chapter 11

“What even is this? This is too much. What is your life?” Louis asked himself in a grumble as he attempted to straighten the enormous white candle in the middle of the table. “Attempting a grand romantic gesture on someone who wouldn’t know romance if it slapped them across the face, yep, good call.”

He surveyed the room.

His haphazard living room had been transformed. He’d swept piles of his stuff behind the sofa and covered what he couldn’t shove out of view with throws, so  that half the room was draped with pretty, artistic-looking sheets.  The kitchen table had been dragged through and he’d put an enormous white table-cloth on top of it (which was actually a bed sheet) and crammed more stuff underneath it to try and make the place look neater. He didn’t know whether Harry would even notice, but personally he felt proud of his accomplishment.

Louis couldn’t pinpoint the precise moment when his feelings towards Harry had made the rather dramatic shift from curiosity to friendship to…whatever it was he was feeling right now. (A crush seemed the wrong word – he wasn’t having those giddy, fluttery feelings, but more of a strong feeling of really caring about this strange creature who’d wandered into his life, and not in a purely platonic way.) But he was fairly sure that it had begun with the bird incident and things had only gotten worse from there.

Niall had noticed that Louis was spending a lot of time indoors and had expressed his concern so strongly that Louis had begun waking up early every day to go and hang out with him, although he always made sure to be home by half two. And when Harry came round, Louis taught him how to be human.

~*~

They learnt that although they had yet to find a movie or TV show that Harry didn’t adore, his music taste was far more specified. Most of the things in the charts were received with scorn and a wrinkle of his nose – when Louis played Gangnam Style, Harry physically shuddered and asked him to switch it off less than half a minute in, which greatly amused Louis. However, The Script, his beloved The Fray and various other less well-known bands were received with great appreciation, and Harry even found some cheesy pop songs that were to his liking. They played numerous albums on repeat until Harry was as word-perfect as Louis was, Louis’ voice and Harry’s mental one harmonising perfectly. They had an impromptu dance-off to celebrate, and Harry waved his arms around like a fool and twirled around until they flopped down laughing on the couch.

Next, Louis introduced him to the concept of board games. Their attempts to play Cluedo failed miserably, as Harry became extremely distressed at the first mention of a murder and it took nearly twenty minutes for Louis to persuade him that the situation was purely hypothetical and no one had actually died. However, Harry was formidable at Monopoly after he’d gotten to grips with the concept of money and how much it was all worth, and their four-hour game ended in Louis’ shameful defeat.

The problem was that Louis kept having what he tended to call ‘wobbly moments’. One of these happened whilst they were playing Snap; they both spotted the two matching cards at the same time, and yelled “ _Snap_!” in unison. Their hands flew out; Louis’ small fingers slammed down on the table mere seconds before Harry’s bigger hand landed on top of his, his own long digits folding around Louis’. Static sparked between them like an electric shock and they both yelped, pulling away – then they sat staring at each other in surprise, a shy smile curving across Harry’s mouth whilst Louis struggled to remember to close his own.

Eventually, the moment passed, and Harry said quietly,  _You said it first._

Blushing, Louis nodded his agreement and swept the cards onto his pile, and the game continued from there with no further interruptions.

Another was whilst they were watching  _Only Fools And Horses_ ; it suddenly dawned upon Louis, like something he had been trying to remember that had suddenly clicked into place, that once Harry found his soul mate, his whole life would change. He would have to move, or they would have to move, to or from a different country, perhaps even a different dimension to circumvent the language barrier. He might have to leave all his friends and family behind without a warning, leaving a gaping Louis-shaped hole in their lives. Louis wasn’t so vain as to believe that they couldn’t go on without him, but he knew that he played a significant role in the lives of his family and of Niall, and the idea of being plucked from his life and dumped unceremoniously into a new one with a stranger he was supposed to want to spend the rest of his life with… well, it made him nervous, to say the least. His other problem was that after Harry had done his job and found the love of Louis’ life, he would have no reason to stick around. The hours he spent with this once-lonely creature, teaching him how to be human and banishing his loneliness a little more with every visit, well, he didn’t want to relinquish them. He didn’t care about the soul mate any more. His own lonely ache had long-since dissipated.

Glancing across at where Harry sat, his excitable peridot eyes fixated on the scene panning out on the screen in front of them, Louis felt his belly constrict as if a giant snake had coiled up in there, and a lump rose to his throat.

 _I don’t want you to go,_ Louis realised.

Would he give up the promise of a soul mate in exchange for the company of this non-human creature who despised his own existence and whose pleasures in life came only from helping others? Strange as it sounded, yes, he would. Because it had occurred to him that the reason Harry spent his life helping people was not purely through guilt, the responsibility of his powers weighing down on him and making him feel like he had to share them – it was because he was  _kind._

Louis didn’t want Harry to become intimidated – or confused – by this new direction his feelings had taken. He hadn’t quite mastered the knack Harry had for throwing up a wall between them to keep Louis out of his head, but he had discovered that if he imagined pulling a curtain across his mind, it provided a thin veil between them to keep Harry from being able to interpret all but his most basic emotions and feelings, and none of the reasons behind them. By unspoken agreement, Harry never tried to pierce the veil, respecting Louis’ privacy, and so Louis felt safe as he hid behind the curtain.

However, it didn’t stop Harry noticing that the connection between them had been breached, and he turned to look at Louis with concern.  _Are you okay?_ he asked, punctuating it with a strong questioning feeling.

Louis gave him a weak smile. “Sure. My stomach’s just feeling a bit odd.”

Nodding in comprehension, Harry shifted away from him, so that instead of sitting so closely together that they were almost touching, he was perched right on the other end of the sofa like some kind of enormous bird. It would have amused Louis if it didn’t make him a little rueful that he had lied.

At first, when he and Harry were still new to each other, his stomach had tended to churn like a washing machine on the spin cycle every time they had been in the same room, something which he had always attributed to nervousness. Was it really surprising? He had no idea how Harry would react to the things he said or did, what his motives were half the time; he didn’t understand him. But he had realised before very long that in fact, it was a physical response to Harry’s presence. His body no longer rebelled against the company of whatever Harry was in the form of vomiting, but prolonged exposure to him had still caused him to feel nauseous at first. Those days were long gone, however. Harry didn’t make him sick anymore; Louis had become immune to that particular nasty side-effect. However apparently, Harry still believed that he caused Louis’ body to rebel and tried to help in any way he could by distancing them. Louis regretted the upset he was causing with the deception, another reminder that Harry wasn’t as human as he would like to be, especially not physically, but he preferred that to having to explain himself.

He sneaked another glance at Harry out of the corner of his eye. Harry’s teeth rested against his full lower lip, the colour of the rose quartz beads Louis’ mum used to wear around her neck when he was a kid. His eyelashes were long and his gaze excited as his eyes flickered across the screen, taking in everything.

The tense churning of Louis’ stomach turned into butterflies.

~*~

There had been far too many moments like that – where Louis had discovered new depths to his feelings towards Harry that were far more than friendly. He was fed up of staring at him across the room like a lovesick teenager, of lying in bed watching the ceiling and the clock alternately and counting down the ideas until Harry was likely to make a reappearance. To hell with it – he wanted to plant endless kisses on Harry’s pretty mouth, and he was going to tell him so, and then maybe he’d actually get a chance to do it.

Surveying the room, Louis gave a satisfied nod. He’d ordered Chinese – Harry’s reaction to it had been one of the best things Louis had ever seen and he knew that Chinese food remained Harry’s firm favourite even if he was too polite to ask if they could have it more often, so he’d ordered extra of everything and dealt it all out onto plates, because eating out of greasy polystyrene tubs might kill the mood.

He was wearing new jeans, the kind of tight, bum-hugging jeans that clung to his arse and stretched across his thighs and were just the right side of too tight. Niall had helped him pick them out after Louis requested that they go shopping, which had aroused Niall’s suspicions (“you  _hate_ shopping, you always complain that it’s boring and you’ve got no money, what’s going on?”) until Louis had been forced to admit that yeah, he kinda, sorta had a date. Not a big thing, really, but there’s not harm in making a good impression, right?

Except Niall had become far more excited than Louis had anticipated, on the grounds that they’d been friends for a whole academic year now and he hadn’t once seen Louis get laid, and it couldn’t be good for a bloke, never getting a shag at their age – he also proclaimed it a waste, which Louis found quite amusing. In the end, he had insisted upon going out to help Louis pick out a brand new outfit, which he now had on. First, the tightest jeans Louis had ever worn (without causing himself severe discomfort, in any case), which Niall insisted were an absolute necessity to flaunt his best asset, namely his bum. They’d matched that with a sweater that was loose and tight in all the right places, and as Louis fretted and worried over the curve of his stomach and whether the garment accentuated it unflatteringly, whilst Niall lectured him with an extremely motivational pep-talk about embracing his body, curves and all, and then  _other_ people would want to embrace his body, too! Confidence! All that jazz! He also recommended that it was almost always a good idea to wear tight clothes that covered a whole lot of skin, therefore flaunting what you had without uncovering it, which was like a subtle-ish hint as to what was underneath. Louis thought that piece of advice was brilliant.

Still, tugging at the slightly over-long sleeves of his new navy sweater (“brings out your eyes,” Niall had said seriously, then grinned at him so that Louis had no idea whether he was teasing or not) and worried about whether Harry would either not notice his efforts at all, or that he would notice them too much, and become unnerved by them.

However, before he could dwell much more on that, a barely perceptible chill filled the room. Harry’s presence invariably caused the slightest drop in temperature, and tense as Louis was, he noticed it immediately. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Hi,” he said, turning around to the source of the coldness, and sure enough, there Harry stood.

As always, he seemed uncertain of himself, ill at ease with his own body. His gaze was fixed to the ground. Slowly, he looked up, eyes dragging from Louis’ bare feet to his eyes, and a tingle ran down Louis’ back like a drop of frigid water rolling down his spine.

_Hello, Louis._

“You always wear the same suit,” Louis noticed. It was an idle observation, and he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. However, it struck him as odd, he realised, that Harry always wore the same grubby trousers and jacket, especially since, despite being dirty, they didn’t seem to smell unpleasant.

Harry met his gaze unblinkingly.  _Yes._

“Don’t…don’t you have any other clothes?”

The embarrassed silence that followed spoke for him.

“I can lend you some stuff, if you want,” offered Louis, hoping he wouldn’t humiliate Harry any further with the offer. “It might be kind of small on you, but –”

Looking down at his lanky body, Harry gave a small smirk, his mouth curving into a shape of amusement. He was getting better at appropriating human expressions every day.  _Sizing is of no importance,_ he said gently.

Louis got the impression that, for some reason, Harry was  _laughing_ at him. Disconcerted, he shook his head and led Harry into his bedroom.

Throwing open the doors of his overflowing wardrobe with the air of a showman, he indicated its dishevelled contents (Louis’ opinion of ironing was somewhat similar to his opinion of Niall’s movie nights: to be avoided at all costs) and said “Take whatever you want…I won’t miss a couple of things.”

Harry’s long fingers ran over the mess of fabrics, some items on hangers but the rest carelessly flung over the rail or dangling off shelves. His expression was one of intense concentration. Eventually, he picked out a retro-looking Pink Floyd shirt that a relative of Louis’ had bequeathed to him a number of years ago, and some jeans that were baggy in all the wrong places and almost seemed to contain more holes than denim. Louis pursed his lips, but didn’t comment.

 _These will do,_ decided Harry.

Louis began to head for the door to allow him to change in private – but he had barely taken two steps when Harry’s old suit disintegrated, turning into a puff of twisted black smoke, like the pollution you might see curling from a factory chimney. The fog coiled around his limbs like it was caressing him, leaving him standing barefoot and wearing only a pair of black boxer shorts. His brow furrowed as he concentrated intently on the items of clothing he held.

The dark mist continued to swirl around him, until it thickened and began to flow over his pale skin like water. Fascinated, Louis watched the ripples of smoke cover Harry’s chest and legs, thickening until his body was hidden beneath a veil of shadowy vapour. The haze was hard to focus on. Even as Louis squinted, trying to get a proper look at it, it solidified somewhat, forming the shape of fabric that covered Harry’s long legs and his bare torso. They resembled grey, blank versions of the items of clothing he still gripped in his long fingers, except they had grown and moulded to perfectly fit his longer body. Wrinkling his nose with the effort, Harry glared at them – and then, splashes of colour started to flow through the clothes he wore, like someone was throwing paint at him. For a minute or so longer, he stood still while his shirt and jeans gained their correct colours, and then he looked down at himself, appearing pleased by his accomplishment. His thoughts were filled with satisfaction.

Harry gave a polite nod as he passed Louis’ clothes back to him, now clad in identical, but perfectly fitting versions of the same items.  _Thank you,_ he said happily.

Troubled, Louis managed a wary smile in response as he tossed them back into the cupboard.

“I bought us a Chinese,” he told Harry as he led him back through to the living room and indicated that Harry should sit.

To his relief – but also to his chagrin, Harry made no comment on the formal arrangement of the table. Allowing Louis to feel his gratitude, he smiled, slipped into the proffered seat and then reached for his fork, pausing as he picked it up to look Louis over with appraisal.

_…You look nice._

Louis tried to say ‘nah, not really’ and ‘thanks’ all at once, and it came out as an indistinct but embarrassed noise as he rubbed the back of his neck, blushed and tried not to look too pleased. He sat down and redirected his attention to his food instead.

It was lukewarm by that time, but neither of them really minded. They could have spoken while they ate – Harry spoke with his mind, not his mouth, and he could pluck Louis’ responses straight from his head without either of them verbally making a sound. However, none of them attempted to speak. As they ate, Louis, not for the first time, admired how Harry, who had grown up alone without any form of guidance as to what was correct and polite, had such excellent table manners (honestly, he put Niall to shame) and wondered where he had learnt them.

When they had finished, Louis could feel Harry’s satisfaction coming off him in great waves. They headed for the living room and sprawled out on the sofa, full and lazy and happy, and as usual, began to talk. Except this time, Louis could feel excitement spiking through his veins, his heart seeming to contract a little tighter with every beat, and he fancied he could almost feel the blood flowing in his wrists and at the base of his neck. He knew that at some point this evening, he was intending to confront Harry and admit to the strange feelings he’d been having lately – but he couldn’t think about the revelation, lest Harry stumble across the thoughts in his mind and spring it upon him prematurely. Louis was sure that if he didn’t handle it carefully, it could all go horribly wrong.

“So how was, uh, Romania?”

 _Germany,_ Harry corrected;  _Romania’s next week._

“Oh, right. How was Germany?”

Sighing, Harry leaned back against the sofa.  _Uneventful. You’re proving to be a challenge. I still haven’t found anyone._

Unable to help himself, Louis felt extremely pleased and the emotion was not easy to disguise. Harry lifted his head and gave him a confused look, but he didn’t query Louis’ response, for which Louis was grateful. He didn’t think the right moment had come yet – wasn’t even sure he’d recognise it when he did, but he couldn’t think of a natural way of changing the subject to what he wanted to say at that moment, so he just let it pass.

“I’ve just realised; I don’t even know how you figure out who’s right for me,” he commented. “Like, you say you can figure out which two people are perfect for each other, but you’ve never explain how. Is it like some kind of sixth sense? Or do you get them to fill out a little quiz? Answered mostly As? Suzie is your perfect partner! You got mostly Bs, that means Megan is ideal for you!” He grinned.

 _I don’t understand what you’re talking about. When do I ever?_ Harry mused.  _But no, that isn’t what I do. I listen._

Intrigued, Louis leaned forwards. “Listen to what?”

_Every soul is different – as are no two fingerprints are quite the same, no two souls are identical. Each soul makes its own individual sound, sort of like an echo that it gives off. Humans aren’t aware of it; it’s too quiet, you have to have very finely tuned ears to hear it, and to know what you’re looking for. It forms…a melody, I suppose. Like a song._

“A song.”

Harry nodded.  _Except no song is finished, really. It always sounds incomplete, like a…like a symphony with half the orchestra missing. Or…what’s it called? An instrumental! Just the tune and no words…never quite complete…_  Excitedly, he sat up, his eyes glued to Louis’.  _I listen. I can hear them, the songs…no one else can, just me. I listen to the song that your soul sings and then I listen to everyone else’s and I find the melody which completes the song._

Completely forgetting his ulterior motive for asking in the first place, Louis asked, “What does mine sound like?”

Nibbling his lip contemplatively, Harry deliberated for a moment, then quietly hummed a little tune. It was hard to tell what it was like; he had a gentle, smooth voice, but it was still hard to get a good impression of the melody. Rolling his eyes, seemingly at himself, Harry closed his eyes and brought their minds closer together, and then some snatches of music began slowly flowing across the mental link, and Louis’ eyes widened. It was quiet, a little eerie, but an oddly beautiful sound. It reminded him of long, lingering piano notes and gentle tinkling instruments, like a triangle, although he could identify no real instruments in the melody. At the same time, though, he wished his song wasn’t quite so sad; it made his chest ache to hear it, and, true to Harry’s word, it sounded incomplete. He felt like he was listening to a song with half of the words missing.

 _It’s lovely,_ Harry said dreamily.  _Very complicated, it’s nice to see. You have an intricate personality – you see many things differently from other people, which makes it rather difficult to find you a match, but it’s beautiful to listen to._ He sat quietly humming along, his velvet voice merging with the notes of the song to create an even prettier harmony.

Louis smiled, but he was troubled by Harry’s words. Was that why he always felt so isolated and different? Was he some sort of oddity? Did that mean there was something wrong with him?

Frowning at his evident discomfort, Harry brushed the crease between his eyebrows with the tips of his pale fingers. They were long and slender, almost as if they were merely the bones with no flesh to cover them; cool and gentle where they touched his skin. Goosebumps rose up on Louis’ arms. He couldn’t be sure whether it was his body’s natural fight-or-flight response to Harry’s touch, or whether it was desire. Noticing, Harry dropped his hand back into his lap.

_There is nothing wrong with you, Louis._

“That’s not what you said before,” Louis said before he could stop himself.

_What do you mean?_

“You…you asked me what was wrong with me. That was the first thing you ever said. ‘What is wrong with you?’ I remember. You never told me what you meant by that. What – what  _did_ you mean?”

A hesitation. He felt the slight tug between them – corporeal, a mental link only, though he felt it as keenly as a physical tug – as Harry distanced their minds slightly, to be sure that no stray thoughts could wander between them other than the ones he was deliberately choosing for Louis to hear.

 _I just meant…_  Uncomfortably, Harry looked away and mumbled indistinctly,  _Why did I care about you…more?_

Louis had had no expectations as to what Harry had been about to say, but that stumped him. At a loss as to how to respond, he shifted his eye-line to the floor and did his best to pay attention to everything in the room except for Harry, and his own sudden rush of feelings. They both felt it anyway; a flutter in his lower belly, heat in his cheeks, and intense longing that came over the two of them so suddenly that they had no time to prepare themselves. It was rare that the influx of each other’s emotions caught them unawares any more, but feeling his yearning filling Harry, then catching onto him and making him crave closeness too, so that the desire was magnified tenfold…they both stared at each other in agony, desperate to close the distance but too shy, or too afraid to do it. Louis almost whimpered from the intensity of it. Strangely, it wasn’t a sexual feeling – it was weirdly primal, but it wasn’t lust that was so insistently tugging him towards Harry. He didn’t know  _what_ it was.

“What does your song sound like?” he asked, in order to distract them both.

Relieved, Harry valiantly tried to ignore the emotion that still smouldered between them like damp leaves struggling to catch fire, and plunged into the soft notes of his own soul’s music, sending them fluttering across to Louis with a flicker of thought. Closing his eyes so as to focus more intently on the sound, Louis clasped his hands to restrain the urge to grab one of Harry’s with them.

If possible, Harry’s song was lonelier and more melancholy than Louis’ had been. However, it seemed to get a little faster the longer they listened, a little less maudlin, like the heavy notes were being lifted and lightened by softer ones. It was as if the new notes were sinking underneath the deep, miserable ones and inflating them, lifting them so that they spoke of a sadness which had been and was desolately remembered, rather than a current one. He felt Harry’s confusion, but he couldn’t enquire what was causing it, as Harry seemed to have gone off into a daze, listening intently.

In one ear, drifted the tones of his song, from quiet sadness to new excitement for life. In the other, came the notes of Louis’, and his own resigned solitude. However, as they both sat hearing the music pouring through them, slow and warm like honey, it occurred to Louis that there were several inherent similarities between the songs. In fact, they sounded good together. Separately, they had been pretty, but when listening to both at once…

Crying out, Harry scrambled off the sofa, almost falling over in his haste, and in the time it took Louis to look up in confusion, Harry was on the other side of the room, standing in the doorway, long hair falling over his forehead in loose waves as he shook his head, his expression agonised.

_No, no, no –_

“What’s the matter?” asked Louis, his chest heavy as he struggled to his feet, and Harry kept shaking his head in horror.

 _No, this – not – this isn’t – this_ can’t  _happen!_ insisted Harry,  _this can’t be – not_ me.

Louis had a feeling he knew exactly what Harry was talking about. His heart stuttered and then lurched in his chest, so that it felt like it was pressing itself up against his ribcage like a prisoner trying to peer through the bars of his cell. But he didn’t dare to let himself believe it; he needed confirmation that this had worked better than he could ever have hoped, because he had always known that the hardest part of convincing Harry to abandon the search for his soul mate, so that Louis could be with him, was that they weren’t destined for each other. He had always known that he would feel a perpetual pang of regret that someone else was wandering the earth, lonely and destitute, never able to have who they belonged with, because they were with someone else. But what need would there be for that argument now? If what he thought had happened, had actually happened…if he was right –

“Harry, what’s going on?”

 _I didn’t – I don’t – this can’t –_ Clearly distressed, Harry buried his face in his hands. His voice stayed clear as ever, clamouring bells in Louis’ head rather than the usual comforting chime as he said desperately,  _it was never supposed to be me!_

“Well, we both know  _that’s_ not true. If it wasn’t supposed to be you, what could possibly have changed that?” Slowly advancing on him with a hand outstretched, Louis said gently, “Harry. Look at me, Harry.”

Harry’s head jerked and he looked up, eyes clouded with anger, confusion, fear.

“I’m not afraid of you, Harry.”

 _Yes, well more fool you,_ Harry said scornfully.

Louis jerked back like he’d been stung.

_Look at me. This isn’t even my real body. This is literally how I have moulded myself into shape, so that I wouldn’t frighten you. I found out your favourite human traits and combined them into a pleasing body. How twisted is that? I chose a body I knew you would be attracted to._

Attempting a playful grin, Louis said tentatively, “Well, if it’s any consolation, you did an excellent job?”

 _That is of no consolation whatsoever,_ Harry growled.  _I have_ duped  _you into being attracted to me._

“Bullshit!” Louis swore, despite a vow he’d made with himself not to swear in Harry’s presence, since Harry was still learning and, like a naughty child, might well blurt the profanities out at inopportune moments. (Not that Louis and Niall didn’t both swear like sailors, but he could just imagine Harry innocently rattling off a list of swearwords in front of some poor innocent old woman and shocking her into a slightly premature death.) “That’s bullshit, Harry! I know exactly what you really look like!”

 _Are you sure I shouldn’t refresh your memory?_ demanded Harry bitterly, and his face immediately began to flatten off, the features becoming a blank white mask until he had no eyes, nose or mouth; merely a pale, empty face beneath a shock of dark hair. He still wore Louis’ clothes. His mind was still a turmoil of so many roiling emotions that Louis couldn’t identify the majority of them. He was still  _Harry,_ and Louis was proud that he didn’t so much as flinch.

“I couldn’t care less,” he declared.

A sharp laugh, like glass breaking, reverberated across the mental link. Harry turned away from him, and when he looked back over his shoulder, his face was as it should have been, from his dark ivy irises to his lips, pressed together and turning pearly white. Louis hated himself for the pang of relief that Harry couldn’t have missed at the sight of his human face.

 _Of course not._ Stepping out of the doorway and back into the room Harry prowled from one end of the living room to the other in silence. He was more accustomed to his body now, and moved with a strange, lanky grace. He paced for several minutes. On his sixteenth or seventeenth journey back down the room, he stopped all of a sudden, furiously turning on Louis.  _You! This is your fault as much as it is mine! With your_ hair  _and your_ eyes  _and your stupid jokes and the way you can’t help but be everything I’m not! You’re beautiful, and I’m not! You’re a good person, and I’m not!_ Trembling all over, Harry said passionately,  _you’re_ human _, and I’m not._ Then he bitterly turned his back on Louis again, like he couldn’t stand to look at him.

“You’re alone,” Louis reminded him. “And so was I…until I met you.”

Harry’s eyes darkened and narrowed to slits. Fir-green cat eyes.

“You care about me.”

His nod was a sharp jerk.

“I care about you, too.”

 _Do you?_ Some of the animosity seemed to vanish, then, his anger softening slightly.

“Of course I do. Are you stupid, or something?” Louis asked gently.

Again, Harry laughed. Louis didn’t like the sound. On the rare occasions he’d heard it before, Harry’s laugh had been raw from disuse, but full of delight, and it warmed him all the way through like a hot cup of tea. This laugh was all sharpness, angles and points, and it got stuck in Louis’ throat when he tried to swallow. Harry’s smile was similarly harsh.  _Probably. Look at what a great job I did of finding you the perfect partner._

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think you did so badly.”

 _How could I_ possibly  _have done any worse? I’ve landed you with a freak – a monster, without so much as a real face to call his own. My whole life, nobody’s ever wanted me, Louis. Now, the first person to ever show me any kindness is stuck with me. Any friends you make will be sick at the sight of me, physically nauseous in my presence. You’ll have to contend with my mood swings and my inhumanity and my lack of self-control whenever it most matters. Nineteen years of loneliness and trying to do good, and for what? I tried to help people, and look what has come of it. You should hate me._

Anger flared in Louis’ chest. “Oh, spare me, Edward Cullen. You think I’m going to sit and listen to this crap? A soul mate sounds great – but I’m not signing up for years of sitting listening to you whine and angst about how you’re no good for me. If you were really that bad for me, we’d never have met and destiny would have done whatever else. I’d have ended up as an accountant in a pinstriped suit, married to some balding middle-aged guy, and you’d keep on doing what you were doing. Saving people, finding soul mates. What’s going to happen will happen, and there’s no point in moaning about it! Are you really that appalled at the prospect of spending the next however many years of your life with me?”

_Don’t be stupid._

“I won’t if you won’t.”

They glared at each other.

The silence broke with a laugh – not Harry’s new cynical snort, but Louis’ real, genuine laugh, his eyes crinkling like paper at the corners.

_Share the joke. I could really do with a laugh right now._

“We’re getting off to a good start, aren’t we?” Louis giggled. “Fighting like an old married couple already.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but there was no nastiness in the motion, and he couldn’t seem to help but smile back, his lips a gentle pink curve. Louis looked at his mouth, raspberry pink, lips bitten due to his stress, and he felt another stupid, helpless urge that he was pretty sure wouldn’t be well-received when Harry was in such an unpredictable – but mostly bad – mood. An urge that should be carefully considered. An urge –

 _Oops,_ Louis thought smugly as his and Harry’s mouths collided with a soft smack.  _Hold that thought._ His fingers slid easily into Harry’s hair and he closed his eyes as their mouths pressed gently together. Harry was too shocked to reciprocate, so Louis put his hands on his waist and deepened the kiss. It was a fairly innocent kiss, all things considered. He didn’t like to take advantage of Harry by doing anything more than moving his mouth a little, his lips soft and warm against Harry’s slightly cooler ones.

Beneath Harry’s shocked exterior, Louis sensed confusion, and a little distress, but also strange feelings that Harry didn’t know quite what to do with. A stirring in the pit of his stomach. A heaviness that weighed down his chest but at the same time fluttered like a butterfly’s wings. Instinctively, Harry wrapped his arms around Louis – cautious, so cautious, afraid of spoiling things – and lifted him a little so that Louis could stand a little more steadily on his toes. In response, Louis’ hands cupped his face, thumbs running down the sharp edges of his jawline. Their bodies pressed together, fitting like corresponding puzzle pieces, and Louis leaned into the embrace with delight, enjoying the protective feel of Harry’s arms around him.

Louis traced Harry’s lower lip with his tongue. Then he bit down and tugged on his lip slightly. Surprised, Harry gasped and held him tighter, and Louis felt his strange stirrings of helpless worry begin to drift away, overshadowed by more important sensations. Stretching up even higher on his toes, Louis tightened his grip on the fistfuls of hair he held, enjoying their silky warmth running between his fingers.

 _No,_ Harry said helplessly.

Louis hesitated, pulling away for a second to judge his expression. He looked conflicted, and Louis could tell from the feelings (which weren’t his own) that churned in his stomach that Harry was enjoying every second of it. He didn’t want to stop, he just felt that he should. Well, Louis wasn’t having any of that masochistic self-hating bullshit, so he rolled his eyes and tugged on the curls woven around his fingers to bring Harry back down to his level and kiss him harder.

_No!_

Louis staggered, his hands suddenly empty, no warm, long-limbed body pressed against his own. Grasping at the empty air, he whirled around, disorientated, just in time to see a swathe of shadows vanishing in a dark cloud in the doorway. Having snatched himself out of Louis’ arms in a way that Louis couldn’t stop, couldn’t persuade him with any more coaxing touches that his guilt was unwarranted and he was  _allowed_ to touch, to enjoy someone else’s company, to be close to someone in that way, Harry had gone without so much as a goodbye.

“Harry?”

No response, and Louis couldn’t feel him. It wasn’t the hard to grasp sensation of when he was being blocked, either; that felt like trying to grab a slick surface with greasy hands, as he tried to get a mental foothold and gain access to Harry’s mind and was repelled. This, though, was different. He couldn’t feel Harry at all. Wherever the other boy had gone, he was out of range of the telepathic link.

“Jesus, Mary and fucking Joseph,” Louis swore.

Indulging in several more colourful profanities, he stormed into the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea and, glowering at the brown liquid, poured a generous measure of vodka into the mug before he downed it. It tasted disgusting, like chocolate and mouthwash mixed together, and he grimaced as he swallowed it.

He’d come on too strong, that was the problem; he was sure of it. By rushing into things so hastily, he’d shocked Harry and in his panic, he’d evidently decided that he shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing. Whether it was because he believed he shouldn’t be with Louis due to the fact that they weren’t exactly the same species, because he was so disgusted by himself that he felt he didn’t deserve happiness, or some other such reason, it was a stupid reason, and given a few minutes to talk to him, Louis was confident he could convince him of that. Of course, forever impulsive and impatient, he had been a ‘snog first, sort out his evident reluctance to go near me later’ kind of guy, and what had it earnt him? For all he knew, Harry might not even come back now. He always had before, but once again Louis felt the cold ache in the pit of his stomach that always accompanied thoughts of never seeing Harry again.

 _He’ll come back,_ Louis told himself. He said it out loud, so that it sounded more confident. “He’ll come back.”

If only he were really as sure of that as he sounded.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve:**

_Day four,_ Louis sighed to himself as he opened his eyes and blinked blearily at the ceiling.

 

The room was caught in the heavy fog of the half-asleep, his eyes unfocused. Light was pouring in through the cracks in the blinds, golden stripes on the floor like rungs of a ladder. His clothes from the night before lay in a crumpled heap in the doorway. A bowl of soggy cereal sat half eaten on the desk. Groaning, Louis pulled the covers back over his head and buried his nose in his pillow.

 

Four days since he’d last seen Harry. Four days since they’d eaten Chinese food together with the lights turned down low. Four days since they had discovered that Harry had been looking for himself all the time. Four days since he had torn himself out of Louis’ grip and vanished, without so much as a goodbye.

 

Four days since Louis had kissed him.

 

Louis didn’t usually do regrets – why dwell on things you’d already done? There was no way of going back now – but boy, did he want to hop back four days in time and backhand himself across the face. What had he honestly expected to come of kissing Harry like that? Especially when he’d clearly gotten himself into a state and wasn’t going to react well.

 

It was the first argument they’d ever had. At least, the first that hadn’t ended with Harry clamming up and falling stubbornly silent and being so obstinate that Louis had given up with him and just let him go. They could read each other’s minds, but Louis was pretty sure it was the best insight he’d ever had into Harry’s thoughts, that bitter, angry tirade. Louis had no intention of letting him to continue to think like that, of course. It was unhealthy and, if nothing else, annoying. However, if he was going to change it, he needed Harry to show up again first, and so far he had been extremely absent.

 

Louis had hoped that he was just taking off to try and sort his head out, but when a day had turned into two, and now four, he had this awful suspicion that Harry had decided to remove himself from Louis’ life in order to make sure that he wouldn’t be stuck with him as a soul mate. The prospect of being stuck back into that hole in his life without the other half of him that made him fit, wandering around never feeling quite right, a piece of the wrong jigsaw puzzle slotted in somewhere where he didn’t belong...it made his stomach crumple up with dread. Now that he knew there was a solution to his feelings, he hated that Harry had chosen to take it away from him just because he thought he knew best. It was unbelievably selfish.

 

The phone started ringing. Louis ignored it, face pressed into his pillow, trying to fall back asleep.

 

Once the phone had stopped, he abandoned that plan. Getting up, he began to do something which he did only in times of extreme crisis or family visits: tidy up. He tossed his clothes into the washing basket, poured the cereal down the sink, and even got out a duster and started half-heartedly flicking it at surfaces before he got properly into it.

It became relaxing, after a while, the monotony of it preventing his mind from wandering and causing him to shut down and merely work at it with the kind of dull, mindless mentality he usually devoted to school work. He dusted, wiped the windows so that more light poured in through the previously dull glass, polished all the mirrors, making stupid faces at himself as he did so, and then stopped for lunch.

 

After eating a sandwich (cheese and ham), he went back to his work. His house was beginning to look worryingly tidy; he even reorganised some of his many piles of clutter so as to more easily maneouvre the vacuum cleaner around them. He had his headphones in, and relished the opportunity to belt out several _Grease_ numbers whilst no one was watching, even allowing himself to do a little dance routine that he still remembered bits of from high school. He was having the time of his life. Harry? Harry who?

 

Flicking the cord of the vacuum cleaner out of his way, Louis had reached the second chorus and was loudly singing “You’re the one that I want! You are the one I want! Ooh, ooh ooh honey –” when he whirled around, wildly swinging the long tube of the vacuum cleaner like a lethal weapon, only to narrowly miss bringing it slamming down on Harry’s head.

 

They both yelped; fast as a shadow, Harry leapt out of the way, almost dropping a bouquet of flowers he was holding in one hand. Louis stepped backwards, almost fell over the hoover, flailed around in utter mortification for the off switch and then found himself sitting on the floor propped up against the vacuum cleaner, staring dazedly at Harry. He ripped the headphones out of his ears, blushing, and hoping Harry hadn’t been around to hear his dramatic, heartfelt rendition of ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’.

 

Harry had discarded the phantom clothes of Louis’ that he had borrowed, and instead he wore black jeans and a white t-shirt with ‘ _Love Is Equal_ ’ swirled on it in fancy writing. He even wore shoes; scuffed brown leather boots that looked like they would fall to pieces if he walked too far in them. His hair was a dark tangle, like a bramble bush, several unruly curls falling across his forehead. There was a certain wariness in his eyes, like a cornered animal eyeing its predator. Louis decided not to focus on Harry’s obvious apprehension, or on his guilt, which he could feel churning in his own stomach and making his throat burn, or on the longing he could feel once again between them, a relentless pull like an itch that it would kill him not to scratch. That one was hard to ignore, but ignore it he did. Instead, he got to his feet, trying to imagine that he still had one small scrap of dignity left, and looked at the brightly coloured bunch of flowers Harry held, encased in pink plastic wrapping.

 

 _I liked your song,_ Harry said without a trace of irony.

Louis blushed anyway. It wasn’t that he had a bad voice, because he knew he could sing, but for some reason it still embarrassed him to do it in front of other people. Especially when he was accompanying it with an impromptu dance routine and dramatic expressions.

In order to change the subject, he reached out and touched the deep purple petals of the closest flower to him. He recognised some of the more common blooms – roses of white, red and pink, a few carnations, some sort of deep-throated lily that emitted an odour just the right side of overwhelming – but some of them, he couldn’t have begun to guess at the names for. “These are beautiful.”

 _They’re for you,_ Harry said shyly, offering them to him. _They made me think of you._

“Did they?” asked Louis, accepting the bouquet with a crackle. He wasn’t much used to getting gifts of that sort, so he looked down and thankfully buried his face in them so he didn’t have to look at Harry, inhaling the scents. “Why?”

Harry’s shoulders twitched, and Louis realised he had attempted a real, human shrug. _Like you said, they’re beautiful._

 

It took several moments for what he had said to properly register, and then Louis had to cover his mouth with his hand to hide a very embarrassing grin, his eyes wrinkling at the corners as he clutched at the flowers. For someone who had barely had human contact for nineteen years, Harry was really good at the whole romance thing. Feeling giggly, Louis headed for the kitchen, looking for a vase and trying to disguise his helpless smile. Harry traipsed after him, his own smile big and pleased at the excellent reception of his gift.

 

Well, Louis had never been given flowers before, so he had no vases, but he managed to find a big glass measuring jug that could just about support the enormous bunch of flowers. Filling it with water, he placed them in it and stood sprucing up the blossoms, trying to make them look absolutely perfect again from where his grip had crushed them a little. Harry hung back a little, standing in the doorway, but Louis could feel the fondness of his gaze lingering on his back like a hand resting there.

 

“You came back, then,” Louis observed, using the flowers as an excuse not to turn around and look at him.

_Yes._

“And have you decided to stop whining about things you can’t control, and just accept that you’re stuck with me?”

 _You mean_ you’re _stuck with_ me _,_ corrected Harry, _but yes. I have accepted that. I shouldn’t have run away._

“And I shouldn’t have kissed you on the first date. It’s bad manners.”

_I don’t think that was really our first date. But it’s okay. I liked it._

“Oh, good.” Louis swung around and continued with an eyebrow raised, “there I was thinking that I was such an appalling kisser that you fled to get away from my advances. And my garlic breath.”

 _It’s true that I didn’t so much enjoy the garlic breath,_ Harry admitted, with an impish grin.

“I don’t have garlic breath _now_.” It was almost a challenge.

 _So you don’t,_ Harry agreed..

“Well, then. You have no excuse for getting away from me. Give us a kiss, then.”

 

He was worried he’d been too forward when Harry didn’t immediately respond. But he didn’t take the request back. Sure enough, though, his concern began to dwindle as a smile slowly flickered on Harry’s lips and then spread into a playful grin, like a faulty light-bulb sputtering into life until it became bright and brilliant. Stepping closer, Harry looked at him with a smirk like a dare, towering over him with his extra head of height so that he had to dip his head to press their foreheads together. His heart thudded excitedly and Louis, unable to help himself, tilted his head and went in for the kiss, his fingers curled around Harry’s wrists, but just before his lips landed on Harry’s, there was a sudden breeze and his hands were empty again.

 

Cursing, Louis put his hands on his hips, wishing that if Harry really did have such an aversion to being kissed then he’d just say so, rather than getting him all worked up like this – then at a polite cough in his mind, he whirled around to find Harry standing by the window, sunlight playing in his hair and making it look like melted chocolate. His lips were quirked upwards in a wicked smirk.

 

_Catch me if you can._

 

Then he was gone again; Louis felt cool air shifting behind him, breath on his neck, lips ghosting over the back of his neck so close to touching him that he could almost feel them, a hairsbreadth away. But they didn’t make contact, and as he whirled to catch Harry, the other boy was already gone, slipping through his fingers like smoke.

“Oh, so it’s going to be like _that_ , is it?” he asked with a smirk of his own.

 

Harry’s laugh was that same soft sound of delight, like he was exhaling pure happiness into the air, and Louis stood still for a moment, enjoying it. Far better than the awful harsh bark that he had heard last time.

 

He wasn’t fast enough to catch Harry merely by leaping to wherever he appeared next; Harry would be gone before he’d even thought to start moving. No, if he was going to win this game, he had to sense what he was intending to do rather than pay attention to what he was actually doing. Closing his eyes, Louis started casting his mind out. He imagined it to be like ripples, expanding and getting stronger as he flooded through Harry’s mind, immersing himself in his thoughts and feelings. Harry was excited, happy to be playing, pleased that Louis was so eager to reciprocate, and full of mischief as he plotted over where he was going to appear next. It was that part which Louis concentrated on, seeing all of Harry’s options spread in front of him like a map. Multiple choice. Currently, he was going to choose between three options: behind the sofa, perching on the vacuum cleaner that lay on the floor like the carcass of some strange yellow animal, or directly in front of Louis, so close that he could kiss him on the lips and be gone within a nanosecond.

 

 _Cheat,_ Harry admonished, and Louis grinned as he lunged for him, feeling a slender waist and billowing fabric beneath his fingers before Harry was gone again, drifting through the room like dark fog.

“Says the one who’s teleporting around the room.” Without opening his eyes, to keep up his concentration, he started slowly prowling around the room, smiling in spite of himself. He felt Harry materialise and begin mimicking him, so that they were the exact same distance apart, walking even slower since his long legs took one stride for every two that Louis took.

_That’s not cheating. That’s..._

“Well, what is it?”

Louis kept walking, his steps a little hesitant since he was walking around blind, arms stretched out in front of him like they were playing Blind Man’s Buff.

 _It’s...ingenuity. Besides, I’m still getting used to this body. I fall over sometimes. It’s oddly proportioned. Everything’s so_ long.

“Are you serious? Your other body is like, eight feet tall!”

 _Yeah, but at least that was evenly spaced out. This body is eighty percent legs, ten percent torso and ten percent massive hands. I’m like a...a giraffe._ Alarm spiked through Harry and he cried out, _mind the coffee table!_

So quickly that he was pretty sure it had not been entirely of his own volition, Louis veered to the left; when he opened his eyes, he realised his knee had missed the sharp corner of the table by inches. He felt Harry’s disapproval, but also reluctant amusement.

_You’re hopeless. Watch where you’re going!_

“Why would I, when you’re here to do it for me?” But Louis walked a little slower, trying to remember the layout of the room as he moved, so as not to be on a collision course with any other items of furniture. He sensed Harry beginning to vanish and turned at precisely the right moment, grabbing at his arm and pulling him closer. Laughing, Harry whirled around and was gone again, but the knowledge that if he’d had a slightly firmer grip, Harry wouldn’t have been able to get away without cheating filled him with satisfaction.

 

They edged around each other for several more minutes in silence. Their feelings were playful; intermingled easily. Louis was frustrated, but not so much so that he had ceased to find this cute and funny. Harry was relishing the opportunity to tease him, to play, something which he’d never had a chance to do with anyone before. There was a childlike side to him, a part which liked to be silly, Louis sensed, and he’d never had much opportunity to give in to it. Well, Louis was happy to indulge him.

 

He was enjoying Harry’s attentions, although he felt rather vain for admitting it. But Harry admired him; his golden skin stretching out for miles like a beach on a sunny day, his eyes bright like blue ink, his hair the colour of coffee with very little milk. He looked up to him, too, believing him to be enviably clever and knowledgeable with all the simple things he knew which Harry, simply through lack of human interaction, could never be expected to know. It was adoration, plain and simple, like a first crush. Well, Louis remembered all too well the potency of that; he could perfectly recall his first crush at thirteen years old. How his heart had thudded like a constant drum beat and the blood had exploded through his veins like a waterfall every time he had touched the object of his affections. How he had lain giddily in bed at night going over every slight nuance of conversation between them. Now that he was older, he felt things differently, but he had never forgotten the ache of his heart back then. So much smaller, so that his feelings filled it to the brim and then spilled over. He would never feel the same way, and better this might be, intense in a different way, but...never the same. It was all new to Harry.

 

In return, Harry was equally delighted by the attraction Louis felt towards him, and the excitement Louis felt to be dusting off his rusty flirting skills and putting them back to use, after such a long time. He was finding it difficult to control himself, and every so often there would be a crash as the shadows around him whipped a little too wildly and knocked things over. He was always extremely apologetic, rushing over to try and fix what he had displaced, which Louis found very cute.

 

The teasing helped to put them both at ease. Even though he was no longer afraid of Harry, Louis could still be caught unawares by his abilities, and still wasn’t completely sure what he was capable of. This way, they were both able to explore a multitude of things – the connection between them, its depths, how well and how quickly they could communicate through it, as well as how they felt about each other currently, and some of what Harry could do. Louis had always been a little nervous about the way Harry could disappear and reappear so quickly, but this way, knowing where and when Harry was going to pop back up, and also feeling how he did it and therefore beginning to understand it, he felt far less intimidated.

 

“You’re such a tease,” Louis complained, as Harry whirled past him for what felt like the fiftieth time. “Is that something I should take note of?”

 _You like it, which is already duly noted._ He could feel Harry’s grin even though he couldn’t see it.

 

Louis turned, and his hands grasped the sharp bones of Harry’s hips. With a triumphant cry, he yanked Harry towards him, looking him right in the eyes, and then started walking forwards, gently pushing him along. The backs of Harry’s knees found the sofa arm and he fell gracelessly over the arm, sprawling on the sofa with a huff of surprise. Smirking, Louis scrambled on top of him, pinning him down by the wrists with both hands; he held Harry’s enormous hands together over his head, and looked down at him with satisfaction.

 

Of course, Harry could have wriggled away with very little difficulty, but he lay there almost lazily, his eyes smiling even more than his mouth.

 

Dipping his head, Louis tilted to the left and his eyes closed. They kissed slowly but excitedly, heat burning in their stomachs slow and strong, like a sunset. His hands stroked Harry’s skin and it felt softer than velvet beneath his fingertips. Happiness pouring through their mental link, Harry touched his hair so lightly it was as if he was afraid of breaking him.

The kissing lasted a long time; it was slow and gentle and filled with enthusiasm, because it was new to them both. Something Louis particularly liked was how he could read Harry’s responses to the kisses from him, feeling for himself what felt good and what he liked best rather than just having to interpret that from the way his body reacted. It made things easier, in a way.

 

Harry tasted familiar, like tea and biscuits and a little hint of something new and exciting that Louis couldn’t quite put his finger on. He had a feeling that the familiarity was a deliberate device to relax him, but he didn’t really mind. From Harry, he knew that his own mouth tasted a little sour, like morning breath, and he apologetically stroked Harry’s arm, although the other boy didn’t seem to mind.

 

Eventually, they pulled apart, and Harry’s mouth, which was usually bright pink anyway, looked puffy and pretty, glistening like he’d put a layer of lipgloss on. His hair fell messily over his forehead; Louis fondly pushed it out of his eyes.

 

“I’m glad you came back. I missed you,” he said softly.

 _I missed you too_. Harry nudged his collarbone with the tip of his nose and smiled.

“And,” Louis continued as he rolled off Harry and got to his feet, “I bet I know what _else_ you missed.”

Harry’s mood was curious.

 

Gesturing for Harry to follow, Louis led him into the kitchen with a grin on his face. He stood on his toes, reached for the newly filled jar on top of the fridge – crammed to the brim with Oreos, today – and he had just grabbed it when he caught another look at the flowers out of the corner of his eye, and something occurred to him which he hadn’t thought of before; he’d been too caught up in the romance of it all to think of it. But all of a sudden, he couldn’t ignore what he had just realised.

 

“Where did you get the flowers, babe?” he asked as he helped himself to a biscuit and then offered Harry one. He wasn’t sure when he’d decided to start calling him ‘babe’, but it had slipped out, and it felt nice.

 _I found them_ , replied Harry, nibbling on the edge of an Oreo.

But they weren’t hand-picked. They were too neatly cut, too perfect for that, and they had that almost stifling scent that lingered around all shop-bought flowers, and were wrapped in pink plastic. They had been arranged professionally, with a good eye as to which blooms would look best together, trimmed well...they were quite clearly shop-bought flowers.

“No, no you can’t have. You didn’t just pick these in the park or whatever, they’re like...special ones, from a shop. Where did you get them?”

Harry looked confused. _I found them. They were on a big rack on the street, outside a whole room full of them. They were pretty, so I brought them for you. Don’t you think they’re pretty, Louis?_ Looking hurt, he stretched his fingers out to rub them over a petal. Louis could feel that he was upset.

“No, they’re lovely, babe, but – show me where you found them?”

Closing his eyes, Harry sent him a mental image of a shop. It was one that Louis recognised; the florists on the high street, and he knew the owners because he used to wave at them on the way to work. He hadn’t been in that area much since he’d lost his job, so he hadn’t seen them in a while, but that was hardly the point.

“How did you pay for them?”

Even more confused, Harry repeated, _pay for them?_ He was puzzled.

“Yeah,” said Louis patiently, “babe, you can’t just _take_ things. You have to give people something back for them. You have to give them money.”

Simultaneously looking confused and disgusted, like that was the weirdest and worst idea he’d ever heard, Harry stared at him.

“Look.” Louis reached into the pocket of his jeans, found his wallet and pulled out several notes and a few pound coins for Harry’s inspection. “See? If you see something you want in a shop, you give some of these to the person working there. They’ll tell you how much they want for it. And then you can take it. But you didn’t do that, you stole them, and that’s wrong.”

 

It was a poor choice of words; Harry was terrified of being wrong. His eyes widened, and his grip on the biscuit tightened so that a handful of dark crumbs fell through his fingers and hit the floor like a pile of ashes. Louis could feel his distress like a snake whipping its head back and forth in anguish. He recoiled from it. Standing several steps away from him, Harry was surrounded by shadows; they rose around him like waves being thrown up by a storm, and Louis knew that it wasn’t intentional. Harry’s panic had caused them to materialise, ruffling his hair and churning around him, and he could lash out with them at any moment. Uneasily, Louis almost took another step back but then took a deep breath and forced himself to stay where he was so he wouldn’t upset Harry any more. Recently, Harry had been doing so well, acting so human that Louis had almost forgotten he could get like this, lose control and freak out over such a simple thing he’d gotten wrong because he was so afraid of _being_ wrong.

 

Before he could help Harry, he had to calm himself. Louis inhaled deeply through his nose and imagined he was sinking into the ground with every breath, a tactic he’d been taught years ago by an old teacher back when he’d had a few problems with anger management, and it helped to calm him in this situation, too. Ignoring the shadows coiling around Harry like a protective mist, he stepped closer, hand stretched out, and tried to emanate soothing feelings. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips.

 

“Harry, it’s okay.”

 _I didn’t mean to do it wrong,_ Harry moaned, _I’m sorry._

“It’s okay! You didn’t know. Harry, look at me, come on.”

Harry did. His eyes were dark and deep, like a forest you could wander into and lose yourself in so easily.

“We can fix this, okay? Just take them back. That’s all you have to do. Put them back where you found them, and then that’s it. You just made a mistake. Everyone makes those. That’s all part of being human.”

Copying him, Harry took a deep breath, immediately seeming to relax. _Really?_

“Yep,” promised Louis. “It’s fine, babe.” Turning around, he pulled the flowers carefully free of the jug, he ignored the prickling sensation on the back of his neck that screamed at him to turn around and face Harry. He had no reason to be afraid, he told himself. Harry wasn’t a predator, he was his friend. More than that.

 

He pressed the bunch of flowers into Harry’s arms. “Go and put them back, yeah?”

 

He’d barely finished the sentence when Harry was gone, a blur of shadows obscuring him for a moment and then clearing to leave the kitchen empty. A lump rose to Louis’ throat that he couldn’t quite explain away, and he hurried to get himself a glass of water. He wondered if the clenching in his stomach meant that he was going to be sick again, but that wouldn’t make sense. He hadn’t been nauseous in Harry’s presence for weeks.

 

It was being away from him, Louis quickly realised, that caused it. It made him anxious. And not only because he missed him, but because he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to cope by himself. That was stupid; Harry had lived for nineteen years unscathed, the only sign of his isolation being his over-the-top reactions and sudden mood swings, and struggles to integrate himself into normal human life. But for some reason Louis had this feeling that he ought to protect him.

 

Harry was more than a head taller than him, could summon shadows that, by the looks of them, could solidify and act like extra limbs, grabbing and piercing and slicing and slashing so that he could stand ten feet away and still attack someone with impunity (although the thought of Harry hurting anyone was so odd that Louis could hardly imagine it). With his mental link and the ease with which he slipped into people’s minds, he could sense their every intention and counter it before they’d even begun to act on it. And failing that, he could incapacitate someone with the link even just by letting them feel his own panic, which would cause them to be frozen by the second-hand experience of his terror. His emotions were so shockingly strong that even Louis, who was almost used to the feeling of sharing them all by now, was still often caught off-balance by them.

 

All in all, Harry was more than capable of taking care of himself, but Louis wanted to look after him anyway.

 

 _I put them back,_ Harry said eagerly.

Louis turned around to find Harry standing right there. He hadn’t even noticed the tiny temperature drop or the sensation of being watched, which pleased him in a weird sort of way. He truly was getting used to Harry. Standing on his toes, he kissed him on the lips to let him know how happy he was, and he felt Harry’s excitement bubbling like a pan that was about to boil over.

“There, see? Easy as that,” Louis said softly, then, on an impulse, added, “good boy.”

For a moment he thought it might be a bit patronising, but Harry closed his eyes and made a sound in his mind rather like a cat purring, and Louis decided that he was perfectly content with being called that.

_I’m sorry._

“Hey, you made a mistake. That’s fine. You won’t do it again, right? If you see something you want, just tell me how much it costs and I’ll give you the money for it. If – if I can afford it. I’m a bit, um. I don’t have all that much money at the moment,” Louis admitted.

_Why don’t you get some more?_

Louis laughed a little bitterly. “Ah, if only it were that easy. I had a job, which is what you have to do to get it in the first place, but they’ve sort of let me go. Couldn’t afford to employ me anymore. It’s okay. Means I have more time to spend with you, doesn’t it?” He rubbed Harry’s back comfortingly.

 _I could get a job and help you!_ Harry offered excitedly.

“Maybe...not just yet,” Louis said carefully. “I think we’d better teach you a few more things about being human first. I keep forgetting I haven’t taught you the basics. There’s stuff that I just sort of grew up knowing that you have no idea about...I mean, for starters, you probably need to learn to talk first. People might be a bit freaked out if they go into Sainsburys and their cashier starts talking to them telepathically.” He fondly patted Harry’s shoulder.

 _Yes,_ agreed Harry. _I suppose so._ He looked a little disappointed.

“Hey.” Lifting his chin, Louis looked into his eyes and kissed him on the lips again to cheer him up. “You liked my song? I’m gonna show you the movie it’s from. _Grease._ My favourite movie of all time. You’re gonna _love_ it.”

Harry beamed.

 

They ended up sitting on the sofa while Louis fast-forwarded past the adverts on his ancient video cassette of Grease ( _It just isn’t the_ same _on DVD,_ he whined to anyone who tried convincing him to get a new copy) and Harry snuggled underneath his arm. Louis enjoyed their closeness, but at the same time, his own words kept echoing back to him. Along with the thought that one day, if he did succeed in teaching Harry to be a perfectly ordinary human being, one day he was going to have to unleash him on society, and he dreaded the idea of letting Harry out into that harsh world out there, not only for his sake but for the sake of everyone else. Would he not always have an underlying fear that, like today something would upset Harry and he’d lash out again, no matter how much progress he seemed to have made? That there’d always be a risk of him giving himself away as not being human?

Louis cuddled Harry, but even as he sang along automatically to all of the songs, his mind kept wandering to that path. Even as they sat together in their own happy little bubble, he worried.

 


	13. Chapter 13

_It’s just not a good idea, Louis, trust me._

“Jesus, you sound like my mother. ‘But why, mum?’ ‘Because I said so!’ – aka the most annoying phrase in the history of annoying phrases, which isn’t even an actual reason. Give me one proper, legitimate reason why you moving in is in any way a bad idea.”

Harry hesitated. For a moment Louis contemplated inundating him with mental images as to why it was such an excellent idea for him to move in, but he decided he didn’t want to push him – and some of those images weren’t particularly appropriate. Maybe he’d better keep them to himself for the moment.

They’d been having this discussion on and off for days, changing the subject and chatting about something else before swinging wildly back to the original topic, although Harry usually clung valiantly to whatever they’d been discussing before, reluctant to let Louis bring up his new proposal for housing arrangements. Louis was all for having Harry move in with him and stay over permanently. He’d slept over several times, but Louis would always wake up to an empty bed in the morning. He wanted more than that. He wanted to make Harry breakfast in the morning and bring it to him while he was still sleepily entangled in the blankets. He wanted to hear his rough, sleepy voice and see his messy hair in the mornings, to wake up in the middle of the night and know that Harry was there. Maybe it was a little early to have Harry move in, but he was his soul mate, right? What could possibly go wrong?

He’d been trying for days to find out what Harry’s aversion was to the idea, but to no avail. He didn’t like to pry into his mind, as if Harry wouldn’t have been able to easily stop him anyway, so his only option was to ask. However, Harry apparently wasn’t telling.

“Come on,” he said softly, lifting Harry’s chin. “A reason. And make it good.”

Obstinately, Harry turned his head and refused to look him in the eyes.  _Well, for one, it seems at the moment as if your body has gained an immunity, of sorts, to my presence…I don’t seem to make you sick any more. But we can’t be sure whether that would still be the case with more prolonged exposure…if I were around permanently, some of the side-effects might well come back._

Louis snorted. “Yeah, I said a  _good_ reason, Harry. You know that’s a load of rubbish. And even if you did make me throw up for the first few days, I’d acclimatise again. Give me another one.”

Looking frustrated, Harry wrinkled his nose.  _If your friends came round, don’t you think they’d notice that more than one person was living here? You know we never tidy up after ourselves. If there were two sets of bowls, two chairs pulled up, two people who had slept in the bed, people would pick up on it._

Again, Louis snorted. “I take it that by ‘friends’ you mean Niall.”  _Because let’s face it: I don’t have friends. I’ve just got one._

_Exactly. You_ don’t  _have many friends, Louis. So if your one friend sees signs that two people have been in your house, he’s going to know it wasn’t him. He’s going to want to know what’s going on. You really want to answer those kind of questions?_

“So I’ll stop inviting him round. It’s not as if he’s here all that often anyway.”

_Wow, great plan. I’m not letting you throw your friends away as well as –_ Harry fell silent. He was sat on Louis’ bed and he wrapped his arms around his legs where he had brought them up to his chest, chin resting on his knees.

“As well as?”

Harry shrugged.  _I don’t know. As well as everything else. I’ve disrupted enough aspects of your life already, I think._

“I’d call them improvements rather than disruptions.”

_So distancing yourself from your only friend would be an improvement, would it? Don’t be dense._

“Then don’t you be so negative! We could easily make it work, you know. You just won’t try.” Louis couldn’t help but be angry. He  _knew_ they’d have an amazing time if Harry moved in with him, but for some reason Harry was being stubborn about it. It was probably some dumb show of bravado, or maybe his pride wouldn’t let him feel like he was losing his independence by moving in, but whatever it was, Louis was sure it wasn’t a valid reason, or else Harry would have given him more than pathetically flimsy arguments that he was clearly coming up with on the spot.

If he was honest with himself, he was a little bit hurt by the constant rejection as much as he was confused by it. He knew Harry cared about him, he  _knew_ it. So what was this constant insistence on refusing him? Was he trying to distance them because of some stupid ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ rubbish? Louis knew that Harry watched a lot of bad TV shows, and recently he’d discovered a likeness for reading, meaning that Louis traipsed to the library and back several days a week bringing all sorts of books back for him. Harry’s taste in books was as open-minded as his taste in television; he read anything from Penguin picture books to enormous classic tomes with an enthusiasm that Louis envied. He knew he would have been an excellent English student back in high school if he loved books as much as Harry did. So maybe Harry had picked up some silly adolescent romance and found a list of tips which basically surmounted to avoiding a guy to make him like you more. Well, maybe that worked on some guys, but it didn’t work on Louis.

(Actually, maybe it did – when Harry wasn’t around, Louis spent most of his time moping around and wishing he was there. But that didn’t mean he liked it.)

_Stop pushing me,_ Harry said.  _I thought we agreed to trust each other._

“There’s a difference between trust and ignoring your tenacity. You’re being a dick about this, Harry.”

_Actually,_ you _are. You’re ignoring my wishes. All I’m doing is stating them. I’m sorry, which of us is being dickish, again?_

Knowing that he was probably right just aggravated Louis more. “Wow, I didn’t realise you thought I was a dick. It’s lovely of you to say so, by the way. Nice to know how you really feel. I suppose me being a massive dick is the reason why you can’t bear the thought of moving in with me, huh? The thought of being trapped with me pretty much twenty-four hours a day?”

The edges of the room seemed to ripple. When Louis looked up, he realised that the shadows gathered in the corners were pulsing menacingly. As he glanced over, they fluttered like curtains at an open window, and he felt Harry’s frustration, both at his lapse in self-control and because he was angry with Louis. That was what had caused the shadows to flare in the first place.

Louis’ skin prickled like a hedgehog was rolling all over him, and he resisted the urge to shake himself vigorously, like a wet dog. The room felt wrong, and the temperature drop that he barely noticed any more perceptibly lowered even more, so that goosebumps rose on his skin and the hairs on his arms stood on end. Louis ground his teeth at his body’s betrayal. He didn’t want Harry to think he was afraid of him, because that would cause Harry to fall into a miserable decline and become convinced that he was too monstrous to stick around. He’d vanish for a few days, and they’d both mope uselessly around until he eventually gave in and came back.

However, he also didn’t want Harry to think he was afraid of him because if he let on that he was even slightly unnerved, it would seem like Harry was winning the argument, and in arguments, Louis didn’t like to let other people win.

“Are you trying to intimidate me?” he asked quietly.

_No,_ Harry ground out, his mental voice rough like he was saying it through his teeth. Louis felt him struggling with the shadows, trying to wrench them back into submission; in the end, he flattened them against the walls, which was the best he could do when he was in this much emotional turmoil.  _You’re being ridiculous. You know I wouldn’t do that. You’re upsetting me._ He exhaled heavily and continued trying to batter the shadows back down.

Louis knew he should put his arm around him, tell him to breathe in and calm down, but he was too angry to be reasonable. “Yeah, well  _you’re_ upsetting  _me_. And I’m not the one coming up with all of the worst excuses under the sun to avoid moving in with my boyfriend, who I’m supposed to care about.”

_Would you just listen to yourself for a second? Do you know what you sound like? You’re being completely paranoid._

“Oh, so now I’m a  _paranoid_ dick? Wow, thanks, Harry. You sure do know how to make a guy feel special.”

_Yes, you_ are  _being a paranoid dick, Louis! What exactly are you accusing me of?_

“Why won’t you move in with me?!”

Harry hissed and turned away from him. He had conjured up for himself a baggy red hoodie and old jeans copied exactly from ones in Louis’ wardrobe, and the loose material billowed around him like a gust of wind had just blown up inside it. He looked tired.

“You don’t like me anymore, is that it? You don’t want me. Because you could just _say_ instead of making dodgy excuses. I’d rather you were honest with me.”

_I_ am  _being honest with you!_

“No, Harry, you aren’t. You’re coming out with a load of stupid evasions and downright lies instead of just telling me what you’re really thinking, and do you know what? You’re worrying me. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, you should know, but you’re worrying me, and you’re hurting my feelings, because I must have done something pretty damn bad if you can’t stand the thought of –”

_Listen to me_! Harry shouted, and his voice echoed, as if they stood at opposite ends of a long hallway and his words were bouncing off the walls on their way to Louis. Louis flinched, and then despised himself for it. Harry’s fists were clenched and the shadows had leapt up again, churning like waves in a storm. Around him was a film of darkness that gave his skin a greyish look. His teeth were clenched.

Louis looked at him, and wished his heart would stop beating so embarrassingly fast. It reminded him of a butterfly that had flown through his window the other day and got trapped in his house, its wings beating frantically against the glass with a horrible snapping sound. The speed and urgency of it had made him sick – and now the butterfly was trapped in his chest, its wings slamming desperately against his ribcage.

Very deliberately, Harry said  _I have taken enough away from you. I won’t take your only semblance of normality, too._

Louis had no idea what to say, but Harry didn’t give him a chance. He exploded into shadows, dark insubstantial fragments that burst into the air like black fireworks. Staggering backwards in shock, Louis stared as the haze solidified into a dark cloud and then whipped upwards, flying straight through the ceiling like it wasn’t even there, and as the room cleared and became perceptibly warmer, he wondered just how hard Harry had been straining to hold himself together. Whether maybe he hadn’t left like that just to be dramatic; maybe he had just lost control.

It was their first proper argument, and Louis raked his fingers helplessly through his hair at the thought of how he’d yelled at Harry. Of course, from sifting through his memories – something they’d begun to do regularly, exploring each other’s minds in silence in order to better understand the other – Harry had known that Louis had a temper, but knowing that he could get angry and having that anger directed towards him were two different things.

At the first paranoid thought that Harry might not want him, Louis had lashed out like a wounded animal, and he knew now that he’d made a bit of a fool of himself. If Harry wasn’t interested, he would have known it long before now – he would have given himself away with flashes of reluctance, a base instinct that couldn’t be disguised by any mental wall, no matter how well-constructed. Now Louis had upset him, and he’d gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly, although it was a bit late now.

Maybe it was insecurity. In fact, that was almost certainly what it was; why else would he have been so sure all of a sudden that of course Harry wouldn’t want him, that it was a miracle he’d paid him any attention in the first place? Whatever it was, it had been no excuse to shout at him like that, to ignore all his warnings and just keep yelling.  _You’re upsetting me,_ he’d said. It hadn’t been a mere statement, or a guilt-trip, it had been a plea. They both knew how much harder it was for him to control his powers – and himself – when he was stressed or emotional.

However, it still wasn’t entirely Louis’ fault. For whatever reason, Harry  _was_ keeping something from him, didn’t want to tell him why he didn’t want to move in. That was another blow, and it made Louis’ stomach twist both to think that Harry didn’t trust him for some reason, and to wonder why. It wasn’t as if he could tell anyone else about it – no one else even knew Harry existed.

Most aggravating of all, though, was the effect that Harry’s absence had on him. They spent so much time together now that to not have him there made Louis oddly uneasy. He got this perpetual feeling of discomfort, sort of like an itch, but subtler, that he could never quite ignore. It felt like he knew there was something he should have been doing, but he couldn’t quite remember what. And his stomach never quite seemed to settle when Harry wasn’t around. How ironic, when mere minutes ago Harry had been protesting that his presence would make Louis’ stomach churn, and when he was gone, it felt like someone had taken an electric whisk to his insides.

Instinctively, he reached out to brush his mind against Harry’s, reaching for the comfort that always came with the fleeting touch. Louis expected to be disappointed; the reflex was one he already couldn’t quite control, but although they were getting better and better at contacting each other at longer distances, their range wasn’t particularly extensive.

Even as he brushed lightly against Harry’s mind, expecting to hear nothing, he heard the faintest echo and was suddenly inundated with sensations. The dank smell of must, pinching at his nostrils. The empty, flat scent of dead leaves. The cardboard taste in Harry’s mouth as he breathed it all in. Cool, worn wood underneath his fingertips and the sound of echoing footsteps as he walked through the empty house. The whole building felt empty, reverberating with loneliness. Concerned, Louis tried to look a little closer, because if there was no one in the house then Harry couldn’t have been match-making – there was no one to find a soul mate for.

He gave Harry’s mind a gentle nudge.

There was no answering flutter of recognition; Harry hadn’t noticed the touch, faint as it was. But Louis could feel him, and he used their connection, slipping behind Harry’s eyes. They were sharper than his own, so the house which would, to Louis, have been dim at best, was clearly defined. This meant that Louis could see the cracks in the plaster like spider webs, the dust gathered in the corners and drifting through the air. He could see Harry’s reflection as he padded past a grimy old mirror, giving himself a cursory glance as he walked by it. His lips were pressed together and he had a misty-eyed look, like his mind was elsewhere. Louis was worried for a moment – if he looked at himself, would he have that same expression? Was Harry staring through his own vacant blue eyes? – but he’d know. There was just something about having Harry in his head which made everything feel a little different. His senses heightened, because Harry’s own were more intense. He became more aware of his surroundings, and looked at everything with a newfound curiosity, since Harry wanted to know about _everything._ At the moment, his mind was his own.

However, watching Harry roam around this stranger’s house wasn’t helping Louis to find him, and he knew that they needed to talk about this properly because letting anger sit between them wasn’t good for either of them. There were two ways he could have chosen to go about finding Harry’s whereabouts: he could have gone looking through his memories, seen which route he had taken and followed it (the problem with that method being that when he travelled in a ball of shadows, as he so often did, Harry moved so quickly that his surroundings became a blur, and Louis would be unlikely to be able to figure out where on earth he was going by examining his memories). Or he could have simply closed his eyes and let the draw of Harry’s mind lure him in. That feeling that the link between them gave him, of tugging, like elastic binding them together that always wanted to ping back into place, bring them snapping back together. Dragging him back into Harry’s arms.

It was this method that he used. Pulling out of Harry’s mind (leaving behind the soft comfort of the connection felt like getting out of a warm bath and standing naked in a cold room) he focused on the prickling sensation of unease that ran through him, concentrating on where the pull was strongest. He felt it on the left side of his body the most, closest to the door, so he picked up his keys and allowed himself to almost  _drift_  outside, locking up as an afterthought and then walking down the road.

He wasn’t sure how long he walked for; he was concentrating on the uncomfortable feeling pulling him in Harry’s direction to the exclusion of everything else, and the passage of time meant nothing to him. When his legs started to hurt, and that started to overpower the discomfort of their separation, maybe he’d focus on where he was and how long it had taken him to get there. Thus far, he was nowhere near that stage.

His eyes were open but, for the most part, unseeing. They were unfocused, the world a misty blur around him. He wondered if this was what it felt like to need glasses. It made him uncomfortable when everything was so undefined, but when his eyes were constantly roving everywhere picking up on the details, it was a distraction. As long as he could see any obstacles that he might run into, however vaguely, that was all he needed.

Stopping dead outside an old house, Louis paused. He could only have been walking for ten minutes, because he recognised the building; when he’d started university, one of the dumb initiation traditions had been that new students were supposed to run inside the house and fetch something out of it, except they had to stay in for at least ten minutes. Well, Louis had done his time like everyone else – it was stupid, but he knew it would have been stupider to refuse and end up being shunned by everyone as an outsider – but he had hated every second of it. The house made him uncomfortable. Having the sensation of being inexorably drawn inside it by Harry’s presence was even worse – it was as if the house was luring him in.

Shaking himself like a wet dog, Louis said loudly “Get a grip.”

On the other side of the road, an old lady looked at him like she thought he needed to do just that. Louis almost giggled, but convincing old ladies of his insanity was not what he was there to do, so he took a deep breath and marched up the path. He hoped that by looking confident and purposeful it would seem like he had a reason to be there, and people would be less likely to think that he was up to no good.

He had to step over a large patch of thistles growing on the doorstep in order to try the door, and even the peeling wooden door was draped in thick ivy. However, it opened easily enough, albeit rather creakily, kept reasonably well-conditioned with all the generations of university students who annually crept through it. In the daytime, the house was less creepy than it had been the last time he’d been inside, but it also made him feel sad for some reason. The infrastructure was the bones of an ancient animal, parts of it showing through where the ceiling and floor had, in places, fallen in, and the walls were bits of rotting flesh hanging off them. The house had a musty reek that Louis remembered well, like the door hadn’t been opened since the last time he’d been here. When he looked down, he could see sets of footprints in the dust, but some of them were fresher than the ones which had been left behind by the last set of students who had visited. Their prints were covered in a lighter film of dust than the rest of the floor, but the footprints he was looking at had no dust on them at all. Some of them looked like they couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.

Louis shut the door behind him, his fingers brushing against the ivy that had pushed its way through the letterbox and hung in curling tendrils to the ground. Then he started walking around, breathing shallowly, because inhaling dust with every breath didn’t sound at all healthy to him.

The silence was eerie; not so much as a creak could be heard, nor could any traffic outside, and the threadbare carpet muffled the sound of Louis’ feet padding along. That Harry was in the house, he was certain, because the screaming need to join him had gone now that they were in the same building, but without it, he couldn’t be sure where. So that Harry wouldn’t realise he was there and leave, Louis kept the walls up around his mind so that his presence would be hidden to Harry – although the need to be together that coursed through him would be present in Harry as well, and surely Harry would have noticed that it had subsided? But there was nothing he could do about that.

Deciding to check every room until he found him, Louis started with the closest door, which opened off to reveal a kitchen that had probably been described as ‘compact’ or ‘cosy’ when the house had been inhabited, but Louis thought was more cramped than anything else. The tiles were grimy and coloured a murky greyish brown with dirt and age. The worktops were coated in inches of dust, and sunlight had bleached them pale, although there were darker patches from where people had taken things to fulfill the dare, which had been keeping the sun from reaching certain spots so that they hadn’t lost their colour like the rest of it. The cupboards hung open, hungry mouths with nothing inside them. Sunlight came through the little window, but there was so much dirt on the glass that it looked dim.

Shudders racked Louis’ body as he backed out and quietly closed the door.

Next he found some sort of shoe cupboard, an alcove hidden behind a faded blue curtain – this he recognised, since he’d picked his item from there during the initiation, taking a single shoe and carrying it outside to the other students. He’d thought it was quite a cool thing to bring out, but in daylight he could see that it wasn’t as original as he’d first thought – there were dozens of single shoes which had had their twins taken and shown off as a trophy to prove that the thief had passed the test. Harry couldn’t have fit his long body in there, so Louis drew the curtain back across and kept walking.

He glanced up the stairs and felt the hairs on his arms raise. If he could help it, he wouldn’t go up there. Gashes in the carpet showed a wooden structure that looked like it was half rotten; he didn’t want to trust his weight to those rickety-looking steps.

Ignoring them, he continued down the hallway and turned right, stepping into what had presumably once been a living room. There was no furniture, and empty picture frames hung on the walls. The windows seemed cleaner here, as if someone had wiped them for some reason, and the dirty pink carpet appeared to have been brushed, a pile of twigs, leaves and litter in the corner suggesting that the rubbish had been shoved out of the way. In one corner was a pile of old sheets, ripped to rags, with an indentation in them like someone had been lying there. Louis imagined an angry homeless man in dirty clothes leaping out at him and bellowing at him for disturbing his nest, and he immediately turned to leave, having no wish to be confronted in such a manner.

Harry stood in the doorway, staring at him. His bright green eyes glittered, cat eyes standing out in the gloom. He looked confused.

_Louis?_

“Uh, hey, babe,” Louis said weakly, discarding his defences. “Surprise!”

_What are you doing here?_

“I followed you. We left things on a bad note, and that’s never a good idea, so I came to…well. That’s beside the point. What are  _you_ doing here?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably.

“Maybe we’d better have this conversation at home, actually. Looks like some poor hobo’s made this place into his den and I don’t wanna be here when he finds us wandering round in it. Poor bastard, imagine being so destitute you’d voluntarily come and live in here!

Swallowing, Harry started raking a hand through the back of his hair, and Louis eyed him suspiciously.

“What’s wrong?”

_I, uh…_ I  _live here, Louis._

Louis’ stomach dropped, and so did his jaw.

“You’re joking, right?”

Harry shook his head.

“ _Here_?  _Why_?”

_It’s dry, and nobody ever comes in. Why not?_

“It’s  _disgusting_! And creepy. How can you stand it?”

Harry smiled wryly.  _I’m disgusting and creepy too, remember? I fit right in._

“Shut up,” Louis told him fiercely. “No you aren’t. God, Harry, look at this place? Do you  _like_  it here?”

_It doesn’t have many creature comforts, but it’s okay. In fact, this is probably one of the best places I’ve ever stayed in. I’m more used to woods. Usually a barn. The occasional abandoned sewage system. There’s running water and everything, here._

“Wow, fantastic. Running water! What a luxury!”

_It’s more than I’ve come to expect from these places. Somewhere quiet to rest my head is all I can really ask for. This is a house. Do you know how many houses I’ve stayed in? I can probably count them all on one hand. One of them is yours._

“I can’t believe you’re okay living with all this. There’s probably rats. There’s  _definitely_ bugs. It’s filthy and it stinks, and you’re – is that your _bed_? Christ, you sleep on the floor in a pile of rags? How can you  _live_ like that?”

Harry looked confused.  _How else am I supposed to live? Someone like me doesn’t belong in a normal house, with other people. This is the best place I could hope for. It’s peaceful and people leave me alone, and I don’t disturb anyone. It’s ideal._

“Oh, no. Oh, God, no. This place is anything but ideal. Is this some kind of self-hating, masochistic Twilight crap? Because if it is, it’s bollocks, and you can stop it right now. You don’t deserve to live like this. Nobody deserves to live like this.”

His chest hurt, and he was close to tears. He couldn’t explain how much it was upsetting him that Harry was living like this, that he was treating himself like less than a person by living in these conditions, as if he didn’t deserve to move in with Louis. Even though he hadn’t said it in as many words, Louis was sure that was his reason, and he hated it. Fiercely turning around, he wiped almost angrily at his eyes.

However, Harry could feel how upset Louis was, and, horrified, he drew closer to him, pulling him into a hug, his finger tracing the dark circles underneath Louis’ left eye. A tear landed on his finger and glistened like a shard of glass, and Harry stared at it in horror.

_Louis?_

Embarrassed, Louis scrubbed at the eye that had betrayed him. “I’m crying,” he said irritably, “you know what that is.”

_Don’t cry,_ Harry said frantically, wiping his eyes.  _I don’t like it when you cry._

“I don’t like it when you belittle yourself and do stuff like this because for some pathetic reason you’re still convinced you shouldn’t move in with me, but you’re not going to stop doing  _that,_ so why should I stop crying?”

_Please._

Another tear rolled down Louis’ cheek, but he let it fall. “You know how much this means to me, Harry, You  _know._ ”

Silence. Harry kept urgently dabbing at Louis’ wet eyes and stroking his hair, holding his face, while Louis watched him in silence, entreating him with his eyes, trying to make him understand. He didn’t assault Harry with his emotions to prove just how much it meant to him – he didn’t need to; Harry could feel them all anyway.

_I hoped you could keep something of yourself_ , Harry said quietly.  _Something I hadn’t touched._

“Other people’s boyfriends move in with them, Harry. That’s normal. That’s  _human._ ”

_Exactly. And I’m not._

“You don’t have to be. You’re  _you_ and I want you to move in with me.  _Please_ , H.”

Harry softened.  _You do?_

Louis lightly smacked him. “Of course I do, you nutter! You think I’m just saying it for the fun of it?”

Suddenly serious again, he kissed Harry, a scorching hot kiss that left them both gasping for breath.

“Move in with me.”

Harry groaned and shook his head.  _Lou…_

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis mimicked in the same tone. “Please. Move in with me.” He kissed his neck, starting at his collarbones, exposed where the baggy hoodie had slipped, and slowly trailing up to his jaw. “Please.”

_You’re impossible to argue with._

“Nah, you just can’t resist my charms…” Louis started sucking smugly on the edge of his jaw.

_Ugh…there’s nothing I can say to you, is there?_

“You could say yes,” murmured Louis against his neck

Harry sighed.  _All right then, yes! I’ll move in with you, Louis, just stop_ eating  _me!_

“You know you love it really.” Laughing, Louis detached his mouth and looked down at him with a fond smile. “You sure?”

_After putting me under extreme duress and refusing to take no for an answer,_ now  _he asks!_ Harry said, rolling his eyes.  _As long as you are, then yes._

Louis hugged him, taking them both by surprise. As Harry buried his face in Louis’ neck, Louis whispered into his hair, “You won’t regret this, babe, I promise.”

_No, but_ you _might…_

Louis ignored him. He had no time for Harry’s pessimism – he’d got what he wanted, and for now, he was content.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completely not worth the wait, I know, but I’m queuing the next chapter for three days’ time and if it’s any consolation, in a few chapters’ time you’ll be getting an 11k chapter with smut :)

Louis set an alarm to wake him up early and hoped, just  _hoped_ , that Harry was a deep sleeper. If Harry was awoken by the alarm then his surprise would be ruined, and Louis wanted their first morning together to be a nice one.

It appeared that he was very lucky – when the annoying drone of his alarm tone started up, he woke up almost instantly and slammed his hand down on the button to shut it up, almost knocking his phone off the table in his haste. Swearing, he grabbed it before it fell, carefully put it back and then cast a glance at Harry.

He was fast asleep, his long body scrunched up small like an enormous kitten curled into a ball. His hair fell messily across his forehead, slightly obscuring one closed eye, and although he didn’t snore, his mouth hung adorably open. He was still fully clothed in a pair of Louis’ sweatpants and a baggy black tank top that, in his own unique way, he’d appropriated from his wardrobe, and his feet were still bare because Louis hadn’t quite talked him into the idea of shoes yet. There was something so much more vulnerable about him in sleep, but he also looked so much more human, and so peaceful that Louis could have sat and watched him all day.

But that would have been creepy, and Louis kind of wanted to go to the loo and definitely wanted to have a shower because he hadn’t washed his hair and it looked, in his opinion, like a hedgehog that had been run over, so he padded into the bathroom, barefoot and shirtless, wearing just old grey sweatpants, and got into the shower.

He’d intended to be quick, but of course, his resolve melted away (along with what felt like every single bit of tension in his whole body) instantly and flowed down the drain with the hot water. He couldn’t help but enjoy it, relaxing into the heat, giving himself a shampoo Mohawk and lathering his whole body. In the end, he went through his usual shower routine – singing an entire set-list of songs (albeit rather more quietly than usual so as not to wake Harry up) and ended up conducting a mock interview, pretending he was a famous singer. He didn’t think he’d be a soloist, so much lonely time in the limelight didn’t appeal to him; he liked to joke around and be noticed, but really, it was so much harder without someone to bounce jokes off and interact with to keep it all going. No, he’d probably be in a band – a goofy, silly band who couldn’t take anything seriously and messed around on stage and just had  _fun._ With this in mind, he proceeded to interview himself in-depth, using his back-scrubbing brush as a microphone.

“‘So, Louis. How’s your tour going?’ Oh, it’s going great, thanks. Missing the family, you know, but it’s cool. I love what I do. ‘Well your fans love what you do too, apparently!’ Haha, yes! Yes they do. We have a very loyal fanbase.” He flipped his wet fringe out of his eyes and gave a winning smile to the imaginary interviewer. “‘And of course, I have to ask – there are rumours of a relationship on the cards; are you still single?’ Ah, I’m afraid not, no. I’m happily taken, I’ve got a  _beautiful_ boyfriend, very handsome. Real sweetie. ‘Plenty of people are going to be very disappointed!’ Oh, that’s  _such_  a shame…but really, I wouldn’t give him up for the world!”

He got out of the shower satisfied that he would have been both utterly charming and extremely sarcastic, and towelled himself dry, including his hair until it was standing up in several different directions and looking quite ridiculous. Grinning, he tiptoed back to his room to get dressed and was pleased to see that Harry was still asleep. He’d rolled onto his back, arms and legs spread-eagled everywhere, and he was smiling in his sleep, hair falling across his forehead. He was drooling a little, his cheek glistening a little, which was a little gross but also kind of sweet in a vaguely disgusting way. Louis shook his head as he quietly dressed (black jeans, grey shirt with  _Veni Vidi Vici_ printed neatly across the front, and odd socks, because due to extreme protest from all his friends, he’d finally given into the form of oppression known as wearing socks, he would not conform to any more societal norms by wearing matching ones) and then slipped out of the room and into the kitchen.

Since Harry had never been over for breakfast before, Louis wanted to introduce him to the culinary delights of the early morning. (It was almost half past ten, but for a university student on end of term break, that was pretty damn early in the morning.) He had god knows how many kinds of tooth-rotting cereal in his cupboards, from Coco Pops to Frosties to Weetabix to Shredded Wheat to Shreddies to Honey Loops to god alone only knows what else, because he was a sucker for trying new cereals as dictated to him by enticing television adverts and he could always be safe in the knowledge that, if they actually tasted like sugared cardboard, he could rely on Niall to eat them for him eventually.

But not today. Today was a day for a good old fashion fried full English breakfast. He was going to wake Harry up with a plateful of greasy culinary delight – an orgasm on a plate. A  _foodgasm._ He couldn’t wait to see the look on Harry’s face.

As a rule, Louis was no Nigella Lawson. Nor was he much of a Jamie Oliver. He could perhaps have been compared to Gordon Ramsay, but only due to a tendency to turn the air blue every time he entered a kitchen. However, limited though his cooking skills were, he could cook a good breakfast, and so there he was in the kitchen, listening to shitty 90s pop music through his headphones, frying eggs and bread and sausages and bacon and cooking baked beans in the microwave, having the time of his life.

Spurred on by fantasies of how pleased Harry would be to wake up to this, Louis became completely absorbed by his task. In fact, he was so distracted, shimmying around the kitchen singing ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears under his breath and wondering how he could arrange the breakfast into a smiley face for Harry’s amusement that he didn’t feel Harry stir in bed.

When Harry opened bleary eyes, murky green like pond water and clouded with sleep, Louis didn’t notice. As he yawned and stretched like a sleepy panther, long and lithe and inhumanly graceful, Louis didn’t feel it. So preoccupied was he that he didn’t even register Harry padding barefoot into the kitchen and silently taking in the chaos before him. In fact, Harry had come up behind him, taken out his headphones and rested a sharp chin on his shoulder before Louis had even realised he had woken up.

Louis didn’t flinch, though. Harry’s presence was soothing to him, his closeness bringing instant relief to a slight ache Louis hadn’t even noticed until it was gone, so surprised as he was, he didn’t start. Instead he sighed and relaxed into the curve of Harry’s body.

Or at least, he did for approximately five seconds, until he came to his senses and whacked Harry’s impressive bicep with the closest implement to hand, which just so happened to be a wooden spoon.

_Ow_ , Harry said, sounding bemused. The blow had had about as much impact on him as a fly landing on an elephant might, but he was used to mimicking appropriate responses by now. He was surprised, anyway.

“Get out!” scolded Louis, “I’m trying to surprise you! How can I do that with you hanging all over me?”

_I’m sorry,_ apologised Harry, but he sounded like he was trying not to laugh.  _You…might want to stop thinking about it, though. I promise I’m trying not to listen. Or look._ He covered his eyes, but even his large hands couldn’t quite hide his smirk.

“Out!” commanded Louis. “Shoo! Go on!”

_Shoe?_

“ _Shoo._ S-H-O-O. It means ‘get out of my kitchen, you great galumphing galoot’!” announced Louis grandly.

_Yes, Louis._

Obediently, Harry backed out of the room. Louis could sense his amusement and he rolled his eyes. 

“Go back to bed,” he ordered.

_Okay._

As Harry slipped back under the white covers and snuggled back down, he heard the old springs in his bed creaking, a significant number of them broken, since he’d been playing Trampolines on it with his sisters for years before he outgrew that sort of thing and came to uni. He couldn’t afford a new bed now; that was a luxury, when he was already spending half his income on baked beans to live on for five days a week. Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted one. Sure, his bed sagged in the middle, it creaked and groaned every time he moved and if he slept at the wrong angle, broken springs jabbed into his spine like knives – but it was a bed full of memories, and he wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable in another one. Even though it had been getting small for him for a while and now he was sharing it there seemed to be even less room.

There was something about Harry’s obedience that gave him a warm feeling inside, too. Bossy? Hell yeah, Louis was bossy, he’d always been bossy, what was wrong with that? He tried to do it in such a good-natured and inoffensive way that people didn’t really object to being bossed around by him. But there was something about how Harry had so unhesitatingly complied that made him feel a bit…excited? Well, he could think of some ways in which that could come in useful, let’s put it that way.

As he lovingly arranged Harry’s breakfast into a wobbly face (eggs for eyes, bacon rasher smile, sausages for hair, baked bean blush on its ‘cheeks’ and fried bread for a nose) he couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. This was one of his better cooked breakfasts, and he was pretty good at them. Niall had dubbed his fry-ups ‘legendary’. And sure, Niall wasn’t too fussy about his food, but he ate enough of it to be a pretty good judge of whether it was any good or not, so this was high praise. Louis carried Harry’s breakfast through on a tray, along with a glass of orange juice (no pulp, because it wasn’t fresh, it was weak orange squash with a bit too much water, but he hoped Harry wouldn’t mind) and a plastic rose he found in a cup in the cupboard, which he was pretty sure was from last year’s Halloween party, because it was black. On the whole, it was a pretty amateurish attempt at romantic breakfast in bed, but he felt rather proud of his achievement.

“Good morning!” he announced cheerily outside his bedroom door, before realising that it was closed and he couldn’t open it, since he needed both hands to hold the tray steady. For several seconds he lingered by the door, inwardly groaning at this oversight, before Harry came to his rescue.

Through their mental link, he felt several shadows slithering helpfully across the floor like pythons, and then the handle turned and the door opened, and Louis walked in like nothing had happened. Harry sat up in bed, rubbing his tired eyes, and gave Louis an enormous smile.

_Good morning._

“I brought you breakfast in bed,” announced Louis, walking over and carefully placing the tray on Harry’s lap. The baggy tank top he’d conjured up had slipped, exposing his white shoulder, and Louis casually pulled the strap back into place, his fingertips lingering slightly on the smooth curve of Harry’s shoulder.

_Thank you,_ replied Harry seriously.  _It’s a lovely surprise._

For a moment Louis wondered if Harry was making fun of him, but when Harry slightly timidly leaned forwards and kissed him on the lips, he decided he wasn’t. Usually, Louis was the one to initiate their kisses, so even this nervous, chaste peck was a welcome surprise. Smiling delightedly, he ruffled Harry’s sleep-mussed hair.

“As was that. Come on then, eat up! I wanna watch you eat your first fry-up.”

Harry’s answering smile was dazzling; Louis had to blink a lot of times in order to process it. Then, he dropped his gaze and started eating.

As he ate, Harry was silent, but he didn’t need to voice his approval – Louis could feel the delight coursing through him, could almost taste the breakfast himself as Harry ate it like he half expected it to be snatched away from him. Louis could feel his smile so strongly that his own lips curved upwards. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he fondly watched Harry bolting down his breakfast and enjoyed being able to experience the taste again for the first time – because somehow, trying something delicious for the first time makes it taste even more incredible, and he could share Harry’s feelings as he nibbled on his fried bread, cut up his sausages, chewed on a piece of bacon with an ecstatic expression.

“There!” Louis said triumphantly as Harry popped the last bit of sausage into his mouth. “I knew you’d love it. How does it compare to the Chinese?”

_Even better,_ Harry enthused.

Beaming, Louis raked a hand through Harry’s unruly curls. “Ah, ever the charmer. I’m glad you enjoyed it, at any rate. It’s been left to me to introduce you to the many artery-clogging culinary delights of life as a skint university student - a great responsibility, but I’m coping…” After a dreamy pause, he asked, “what do you wanna do now, then?”

Harry considered.

“Honour-bound as I am to educate you in my odd human ways, I think there are several things I ought to expose you to…football. Marvel movies. Ummm. Snowball fights! Though that’ll have to wait for the right sort of weather. Ooh, I know - have you ever done any baking? You’ve had cake, but even better than the cake itself is the cake  _mix._ Heaven in a bowl. Raw, gooey, potentially food-poisoned heaven. I’ve nearly used all the eggs but I’m sure we’ll manage. Wanna make fairy cakes?”

He didn’t even have to wait for an answer - Harry’s whole face lit up, excitable grin sprawling from cheek to cheek with his eyes sparkling bright like fairy lights, and Louis could feel his enthusiasm filling them both. He put his arm around Harry and kissed him on the top of his head.

“They’ll be the best fairy cakes ever made in a university student’s bacon-stinking kitchen,” Louis declared.

~*~

“The  _next_ batch will be the best fairy cakes ever to be made in a university student’s bacon-stinking kitchen,” Louis declared, with even more conviction than before.

Harry just giggled and scratched his nose, leaving a smudge of flour sprinkled on the end of it. The bacon-stinking kitchen actually now smelt more like a bonfire that had burnt out. They’d burnt the first batch of cakes - the tray Louis had put them on was encrusted with thick black crumbs, and the paper cupcake cases were all badly scorched. Half the ruined cakes had puffed up enormously and risen like mountains, with volcanic eruptions pouring over the sides of the cases so that they were stuck to the baking tray with burnt mixture that had hardened like cement. The other half had sunk, leaving deep craters that remained determinedly soggy.

They were having great fun even so.

Harry had licked out the bowl so thoroughly that there almost seemed to be no point in washing it before they started again. However, for hygiene’s sake, they dunked it in the washing up bowl and scrubbed at it a bit with a cleaning brush.

_I_ like  _cake mix, Louis._

“I figured,” Louis replied fondly. After struggling with a spoon for several minutes, Harry had huffed impatiently and then pretty much shoved his face in the bowl, licking the sides with enthusiasm and making almost obscene noises of delight. The sight of Harry’s long tongue licking in long, deliberate strokes around the rim of the bowl while he moaned loudly made Louis have to leave the room very quickly on the pretence of looking for another apron. Well, he had found one, anyway – and Harry looked adorable in it; it was a red and white checkered one with frills and white ribbons to tie it around his waist, and Louis tied it neatly with an enormous, floppy bow. He had made Harry twirl around, and decided there was something very cute about domesticated Harry.

Inspecting the recipe Louis had left on the kitchen unit, Harry reached for another egg and began tapping it gingerly on the side of the bowl.  _Are you_ sure  _you’re supposed to break it, Louis?_ he asked dubiously.

“Quite sure. Breaking things isn’t usually a good idea, but in this case, yeah, you definitely break it. Hit it a bit harder – not too hard.”

Harry tapped a little more roughly and a crack formed along the side of the egg. His long fingers slipped into the crack and he neatly pulled the two halves apart, yolk slipping into the bowl without a single fragment of eggshell. Smiling proudly, Harry tossed the broken shell over his shoulder and with a flick of a shadow, knocked it into the bin.

“Show-off,” chided Louis gently.

Harry stuck out his tongue.

“Hey, you’re doing a pretty good job there by the looks of it, you wanna take over? I’ll watch.”

_Okay,_ Harry said excitedly, and he immediately consulted the recipe. Louis watched him lick his lips thoughtfully as he reached for the bag of flour to start measuring some out, frowning at the scales.

Since he seemed stuck, Louis told him gently, “They’ll tell you how much you need, babe.”

_But they aren’t telling me._

“Yeah, you have to put some on and then check the numbers to see how close you are to the right amount…need help?”

_Yeah,_ admitted Harry, hanging his head.

“Hey, it’s okay! You don’t have to be afraid to ask for help, you know. Here – watch.” Demonstrating how to use the scales, Louis allowed Harry to tip the flour into the mixture and then smiled encouragingly. “There!”

Harry’s answering smile was so big and so bright that it made Louis’ heart thud almost painfully against his ribcage.

~*~

It didn’t take long for them to determine that Harry had a talent for baking. Despite having Louis, who had been banned from Food Tech lessons in high school due to setting one too many supposedly simple dishes on fire, for a teacher, and having barely set foot in a kitchen before in his life, the cakes that he pulled out of the oven (using shadows rather than his actual hands, since Louis was terribly paranoid that he’d burn himself for some reason and could not, for the sake of his own sanity, have allowed him to reach into the oven no matter how thick his oven gloves were) were light, fluffy and perfect. He greatly enjoyed pressing the middles of them and watching them spring back up.

He refused to let Louis eat one, and instead insisted upon waiting for them to cool, then making icing to go on the top. Louis only had bright blue food colouring and a handful of those little silver balls in his cupboard, so their decorating opportunities were limited, but Harry did an amazing job with very limited materials, carefully smoothing the blue icing over the top and studding the centre of each cake with little silver blobs. Grinning at his efforts, he held the biggest cake up for Louis’ inspection.

“I think you must have worked in a bakery in another life,” Louis decided, “these are shop-quality cakes, seriously.” He kissed Harry on the cheek.

Blushing, Harry held his cake out all the more insistently.  _I want you to have this one._

“But isn’t that the one you’re most proud of?”

Harry shrugged.  _I want you to have it anyway._

“Really?”

_Yes._

“Thank you,” Louis said seriously, and he carefully peeled the paper casing off. Closing his eyes, he took an enormous bite out of the little cake, practically eating the whole thing in one go. Munching contemplatively, he licked crumbs off his lips whilst Harry waited anxiously for his verdict.

_Well?_ He asked eventually, tugging on Louis’ sleeve.  _How is it?_

“Delicious,” said Louis.

Harry was so happy that for a moment Louis thought he might pass out with the force of both of their ecstasy, so intense that it bordered on delirium.

“Told you it was a good idea for you to move in.”

Harry threw his arms around him.


	15. Chapter 15

 

From that day forwards, Louis’ main mission in life became enjoying every day with Harry. He had a slight dilemma in that he wanted Harry to live his new life to the full, but at the same time, he was reluctant to let Harry outside where other people could see him, and Harry too had qualms about exposure to other humans, due to a fear that he would make them ill. Louis knew that it was unwise to pander to his concerns in this way; it would only make it harder to persuade him to leave the house when the time came, but he couldn’t shake his own not completely irrational worry that something awful would happen if he did – not that it would be Harry’s fault, but humans could be cruel, and confusing, and most importantly of all, they liked to  _stare_. If Harry felt a stranger’s gaze on him, trying to fathom out what wasn’t quite  _right_ about him, or even just because he was so stupidly attractive, he would become flustered. He wouldn’t know how to react. He’d become uneasy, and possibly panic, and god knows how badly it could escalate. Louis just wanted to protect him; he felt like a mother, clucking helplessly over Harry, unable to let him go. Still, at least Harry didn’t resent him for it.

 

Anyway, due to their combined paranoia (it made things so much more  _difficult_ , the both of them being worried about something. If Harry was uncertain about a decision Louis was making, his misgivings would get under Louis’ skin and undermine his conviction, until he could be left feeling decidedly doubtful about something which he had been completely sure of mere minutes previously – and vice versa.) amplified by the fact that both of them didn’t particularly want to risk Harry leaving the house, and neither could find a solid argument for him doing so that could possibly have swayed the other, they were both firmly agreed that Harry was to stay in, and thus, the alleviation of boredom became their primary concern. Louis was easily bored, and when he was bored, he was not good company.

 

He taught Harry to play paper games, like hangman, noughts and crosses, and beetle. It was a little tricky with only two of them to play, but they made do. They watched hundreds of Youtube videos, having one of those days where they began on a Miley Cyrus music video and ended up on a remix of a dog which had accidentally drunk some of his master’s beer. Suffice to say that they both found it extremely amusing.

 

Harry still found some TV shows distressing, often becoming upset at murder mysteries, but Louis eventually managed to coax him to watch a host of his favourite TV shows; Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock, Hannibal, an assortment of comedy shows… at one point, they began watching Supernatural, lent to Louis by an eager Niall (“you  _have_ to watch this, Louis, it’s fantastic, and like, I’m not gay, but there’s some  _serious_  man-candy in it!” “Did you – did you  _actually_ just say ‘man-candy’? …You maybe want to reconsider that last statement?” Sometimes Louis couldn’t believe he was the gay one) but some of the monsters had abilities uncannily similar to some of the stuff that Harry could do, and were being called freaks, and treated appallingly. It was only fiction, of course, and the monsters were all hurting people, which Harry had never done, but it still got to him. Although he made no complaint, Louis could feel the tension in his stomach like knots being pulled tighter and tighter around his intestines, and he himself felt a little bit sick watching it. He turned it off without another word.

 

~*~

 

They were in the kitchen, and Louis was cooking chicken. There weren’t many dishes Louis could make well, or even adequately, but he made a pretty good chicken stir fry, so he was stirring sizzling chicken and carrots and peppers around in a wok while he chattered to Harry about nothing in particular. Harry was quiet and detached, but Louis didn’t mind talking for them both.

 

“I reckon you’d be quite a good swimmer. I mean, you’ve sort of got the body for it. Long, and thin – like a bean pole. Sort of streamlined. I  _like_ swimming, but really I just sort of muck about, you have to, when you’ve got sisters. They want to be thrown in and dive-bombed and for you to down the giant whirly slide with them, so there’s not much time for doing anything serious… have you ever  _tried_ swimming? I mean I don’t see why you couldn’t, or shouldn’t, you had a body, and you can cross running water okay, it’s not like those vampire myths, I just kind of assumed –”

 

“Uullll.”

 

Louis froze. He whirled around to the source of the sound, brandishing his wooden spoon like a sword, looking for an intruder. He pointed it at the door, then the window, then the table – and then he slowly lowered it, brow furrowed.

 

“Uullll,” Harry repeated. Louis could see how hard he was concentrating on saying it – in fact, he could _feel_ it now, an incredible strain as he forced the syllable out through his plump lips. He spoke slowly and heavily, in a voice rather deeper than his mental one. Louis almost dropped the spoon in shock.

 

“Harry?”

 

“Uullll. Uullllooo.”

 

Louis threw the spoon into the sink. Let the chicken burn! He strode forwards, reaching out to grab Harry’s shoulders, then thought better of it in case he disrupted his concentration. His fingers clenched and unclenched helplessly a few inches away from Harry’s shoulders. Frowning at him, Harry met his gaze with a fierce look in his green eyes. Louis thought his heart might explode with pride. Harry was _talking_! Out  _loud_! Louis had no idea what he was saying, of course, but it was just like baby babble – the very first step. Before long he could be chattering away like a toddler. Shivering with excitement, Louis waited.

 

“Uulllloooeee.” Harry licked his vibrant lips, looking pleased with himself. “Lou-ee.”

 

Louis stared at him.

 

“Louis,” Harry said softly.

 

Louis’ vision started to blur and he felt a tear fall and roll down his cheek like a raindrop down a window. He was shaking with shock, pride, excitement, joy, but more than anything, an overwhelming sense that he needed to make a confession – something he’d been thinking of for a while, but kept to himself, locked away with his innermost thoughts. He had been almost afraid of the intensity of the feeling, the depth he felt after such a short while, when surely it was too soon to be feeling this way. To have this much adoration in him for someone he’d known for what seemed like no time at all, but at the same time felt like forever. Somehow, he was complete, now; Harry had completed him. He had been a blank picture in a colouring book and Harry had filled him in. And the feeling inside him was so hot, so strong, so big and complicated and yet so simple and it felt like it would tear him apart from the inside out if he didn’t say it out loud right now.

 

Trembling, he reached for Harry and pulled him into a hug. It started off light, as if he was frightened of shattering the perfection of the moment, but then all of a sudden his grip tightened and he fiercely held Harry to him, burying his face in his sweet-smelling hair and taking a deep breath. He kissed Harry on the forehead and wiped away his tears with only slight embarrassment, smiling shakily. He was overwhelmed by how amazing this moment was – how perfect.

 

“I love you, Harry,” he said seriously.

 

Harry smiled delightedly. “ _Louis_.”

 

He couldn’t say ‘I love you’ in return, not out loud, anyway. So far, his physical vocabulary only stretched to one word. But the way he said Louis’ name sounded more like an ‘I love you’ than anything else Louis had ever heard.

 

“Louis.”


	16. Chapter 16

Between them they made a mutual agreement that each of them should try to master the method of communication he was unused to, meaning that Harry would try to constantly speak aloud, and Louis would try to constantly speak mentally. For Harry, this was not so much of a problem; every day his speech improved. At first, he stumbled over certain syllables, but now, aside from tripping over the odd longer word, he was doing astonishingly well. He was still getting used to lips, and teeth, and a tongue that seemed too heavy in his mouth, and _expressions._ Often he would say things, things which ought to have been emphasized, flatly, as if he was bored of them, and his face would stay blank. It wasn’t that he was incapable of expression, because Louis had seen him smile and laugh and cry dozens of times before, but, in Louis’ opinion, he thought too hard about it. When he was focusing on having an appropriate expression, his face tended to twist oddly so that he looked like he was concentrating extremely hard on something, and it would distort the expression. However if he didn’t bother thinking about it, he could often be quite natural.

He spoke slowly and lingered over every word like he was carefully thinking it over before he said it. His voice was rather deeper than the lilting tones of his mental communication and made Louis shiver with delight every time he heard it. He loved to hear Harry speak aloud and Harry was all too happy to oblige,

Louis, however, was having a few problems upholding his side of the bargain.

You would have thought that it would be easier for him to commune in the unfamiliar way, because really, it wasn’t so unfamiliar. Harry had never had a mouth to speak with before, and had to get used to shaping words and speaking loudly or softly and emphasizing certain syllables and so on, whereas all Louis had to do was think. He’d been thinking for years – something which might surprise some people – how hard could it be?

Exceedingly, it would seem.

Harry could easily have read Louis’ thoughts from him like they were on a flashing neon sign on his forehead, but that would have defeated the entire purpose. If Louis needed to contact him in an emergency, Harry wouldn’t necessarily be listening out for him – he needed to be able to make himself heard. It wasn’t as if Harry was deliberately blocking him, either – he just wasn’t specifically listening. Not being able to make Harry hear him was extremely frustrating for Louis; he’d always been loud and people had always listened to what he had to say, Harry more so than anyone. Now, it felt like they were both standing in a crowded room, and everyone was yelling and he was having to shout over them. But they were alone, and Harry still couldn’t hear him.

He felt like he was a tiger and he’d woken up one morning with the voice of a kitten.

~*~

They were sat watching TV in silence. When they were in close proximity, especially touching, Harry tended to pick up Louis’ thoughts automatically like a radio signal, so in order to try to keep practicing, Harry was sat cross-legged on the sofa and Louis was crumpled up in a ball on the armchair several feet away, scowling. He was in the mood for cuddles, and not being able to snuggle up to Harry had already put him in a vile mood. What added insult to injury, however, was that Harry was smiling docilely at the screen, not so much as sparing a glance for Louis, completely unaware that Louis had been attempting to attract his attention for at least ten minutes without success.

/Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry! Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry./  _Harry._

Harry’s head jerked and an enormous smile flooded across his face. “Hey! I heard you that time!” he said excitedly, and he looked just as eager as he sounded. That soured Louis’ mood even more; he knew he shouldn’t feel bitter, but he had had his one pitiful victory, and Harry was continuing to surpass him in leaps and bounds.

/Yeah, after the first fifty billion other attempts,/ he thought disgustedly, then realised Harry hadn’t heard him. Frowning, he irritably repeated himself aloud.

“Don’t be so negative,” Harry soothed, “it’s not easy talking with your mind, you know.”

But he was jealous, so stupidly, pitifully jealous. Of course he was happy that Harry was making such excellent progress, but it also made him feel odd, because he was so used to being the capable one, the streetwise one, the one who knew what he was doing.  _Harry_ relied on  _him_ to know what to do, to be better at things; he depended on him. For him to suddenly be better than Louis at something…it was a shock to the system, and he didn’t much like it. He had this silly feeling that Harry was going to suddenly forge ahead and leave him behind, and of course, it wasn’t as if he  _wanted_ Harry to be scared and helpless and reliant on him, but he was so afraid that Harry’s independence might mean him wanting to leave –

Louis turned away with a lump in his throat, and a breeze rippled through the room as if someone had opened the window. When he looked around, Harry was standing beside the armchair wearing a big navy hoodie with stripey lining, and skin-tight jeans, and his hands were in his pockets.

“Shift up a bit, then,” he said gently.

Swallowing, Louis put his legs down and wriggled up a little so that Harry could sit beside him. Huffing with gentle exasperation, Harry lifted him up with ease and rearranged him so that Louis was sitting on his lap, and Louis immediately buried his face into the crook of Harry’s neck so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with him. Harry stroked his hair comfortingly, and Louis breathed in the familiar Harry smell and tried to blink away the stupid, pointless tears that were beading on his lower lashes like liquid diamonds.

Resting his cheek on Louis’ head, nestling his hair, Harry said gently,  _I’m not going anywhere, Louis._

“Mm.”

 _You exasperate me sometimes, you know that? You act like you think the only reason I’m sticking around is because I have this complete dependency on you – which is kind of patronising, but let’s not get into that – and that if I manage to get a handle on being_ normal  _then I’ll go swirling off into the great blue yonder and you’ll never see me again. I’m not sure whether to tell you to stop putting yourself down or quit flattering yourself. I handled being alone my whole life up until a few months ago, Louis. I can cope perfectly well without you. Nineteen years alone. Granted, they were miserable years, but I am capable of taking care of myself. I don’t_ need  _you, Louis. Not like that. Not to take care of me._

Pulling away, Louis swallowed and looked away, feeling guilty. Maybe Harry was right. Maybe Louis mollycoddled him, treated him like a child, like he couldn’t do things for himself. He was probably sick of it. It was all his fault, trying to keep him shut away so that he wouldn’t want to leave, taking his independence and freedom when that was the one thing he’d always had. Now it was all coming out; the truth; Harry was tired of him, tired of his mothering and his need to always have Harry with him and his pathetic tendencies towards –

 _There you go again! This is what upsets me the most. I_ could  _live without you, but I don’t want to. Louis!_ He rolled his eyes, but he seemed more disbelieving than derisive.  _You’re inside my head, you tool. You_ listen  _to my_ thoughts.  _We share emotions constantly. How the hell is it that you don’t seem to have grasped that I’m in love with you yet?_

Louis stared at him.

Harry kissed him on the nose. “I’m in love with you,”he repeated, as if to say it out loud were to make it tangible, as if the words were less real if they were inside their heads.

Contented silence fell, and they snuggled for a while, one of Harry’s hands in Louis’ hair, absentmindedly carding through the soft caramel waves and feeling them slide silkily through his long fingers. Louis felt a lovely warmth inside, like he was curled up next to a radiator, and his head was resting comfortably on Harry’s shoulder with his fingers linked with the digits of Harry’s free hand. He basked in the enjoyment of replaying Harry’s words over and over in his mind, like it was the only line he knew from a song he’d heard on the radio – except he was never going to get tired of hearing it. He wanted those words whispered into his skin, plaited into his hair, tattooed onto his body, playing on repeat into his ears. As if he knew what Louis was thinking (and he might well have been listening) Harry slid his hand from Louis hair, and slipped it under his shirt, and traced I-l-o-v-e-y-o-u onto his back. Louis closed his eyes and shivered at the light, cool touch.

 _Anyway,_ Harry said, as if there had not been nearly a twenty minute lull in the conversation,  _you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s not as if you’re_ incapable  _of communing mentally. I think we’ve established that you can get the message across quite clearly if you get irritated enough._

Louis said crossly, “Brilliant. So I have to get pissed off every time I want to tell you I love you. Super.”

Thoughtfully, Harry said,  _I don’t think so…I think it’s more a case of wanting it enough, if you know what I mean. If it’s important enough to you that I hear it, I think you’re able to get the message across…_ Meeting Louis’ eyes, he gazed expectantly at him.

Louis stared back for a while, his forehead creased slightly as if in concentration. A pause stretched between them, and when it had started to become a little uncomfortable with the tension of the wait, Harry gave an almost imperceptible sigh that Louis felt rather than heard, and he looked away, trying not to seem disappointed.

_Love you._

Harry’s head jerked, and his answering grin was so big that Louis was astonished that it fitted onto his face.

_God, look at the smile on you. You’ll give yourself cheek strain._

“Louis!” Harry crowed delightedly. “You’ve got it!”

/I wouldn’t/  _be so sure. Bits of it are still /_ not quite getting/  _through. It’s like sending facebook messages with a weak Wifi signal. You’re getting bits of it. But I think I’ll get the hang_  /of it…it’s/ _stupid._ Louis rolled his eyes. “It’s stupid how quickly it’s clicked now I’ve thought about it. You know – well, you don’t _know,_ but I’m sure you can imagine – when you’re stuck on a certain level at a video game, and then someone tells you a cheat or you actually bother to read the game-play instructions, and suddenly it all falls into place and you just  _get_ _it_?”

Harry nodded seriously. “Well. Now we just need practice, I guess. Lots and lots of practice.”

“Oh we do, do we? And why is that?”

“Well it seems that I have to prove to you that I’m not going to ditch you the second I become capable of pulling off being a normal human being, so we’re going to take the first step.” Harry’s eyes glittered with excitement. “I want to meet Niall.”

~*~ 

Obviously, it wasn’t quite so easy as all that. For starters, Louis had barely seen Niall in weeks. He’d started leaving his phone off the hook, ignoring texts except for the occasional weedy excuse (“trying not to run out my contract, I’m cutting it kinda close this month” “sorry, I meant to reply but I got distracted by Jeremy Kyle, did you see it? This woman  _walloped_ her husband in the gob!”) and if he saw Niall in the street, which didn’t happen very often, since he’d started doing his shopping online, he’d wave and then hurry off, like he was in a tremendous rush. Niall had every right to be extremely hurt by his lack of attention, in fact, to be hurt by the fact that Louis was obviously wilfully ignoring him, and he half expected to be treated very coldly when he guiltily picked up his phone and called Niall back for the first time in god knows how long.

Therefore, he was taken by surprise when Niall picked up on the very first ring with a delighted “Louis! Where’ve you been?” not sounding at all cross in the slightest, and, in fact, acting as if Louis hadn’t been going out of his way to avoid him for weeks.

Guiltily, Louis replied, “Sorry, mate, I’ve had some stuff going on. Bit of a shitty thing to do, I know. Ditching you…but I had a reason. Might not have been a particularly good one, but… anyway, it’s hard to explain over the phone.”

“All right, I get you…shall I come round, then? Got some new movies, and a great big bag of popcorn, and Charlotte lent me her candyfloss machine with all these different flavourings, I can bring it if you want.”

“Um.” Louis glanced over at Harry, who was watching him sleepily from the sofa, wearing one of Louis’ comfiest sweaters – the real thing, not a copy forged from shadows, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows because they only reached three quarters of the way up his arms anyway and looked rather silly – and jeans that looked like they were moulded to his skin. His hair was messy and he looked so fluffy and cosy and cute that Louis just wanted to cuddle up to him and fall asleep right there. He thought he might go and get his duvet and make them both hot chocolate and just talk until they fell asleep with lazy smiles on their faces…

“Earth to Louis? Are you receiving me? Houston, we have a problem – Louis Tomlinson’s drifted off course and is currently revolving in the orbit of La-La Land.”

“Sorry,” Louis said.  _You’re distracting me, Harry. Too pretty for your own good, you._ Harry’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Um. Not today. It’s getting kind of late…”

“Never usually bothers you.”

“Yeah well, I’m getting soft in my old age, aren’t I? But I’ll come round tomorrow, how’s about that?”

“Okay, fine by me…hey, you’ve got to meet Charlotte though! She’s coming round too, I’ve told her all about you and she can’t wait to meet you, she’s so excited –”

He was off on a Charlotte rant; he’d carry on for hours if left to his own devices. Fondly rolling his eyes, Louis held the phone away from his ear and endured it for several more minutes, before cutting the blond off as gently as he could.

“Yeah, that’s great, Niall. Listen, I’m shattered. Yeah, it’s been great talking to you. Yeah, I know. We’ll have a proper catch up tomorrow, just the lads. Well. The lads, and Charlotte.” He hoped he didn’t sound as sour as he felt. “I’ll see you, then. Night, Niall. Night, Niall. Yeah, night.  _Goodnight_ , Niall.” He put the phone down.

 _Well that made_ me feel rather  _bad. He’s always so bloody nice. Makes me feel like a bit of a dick._

“You’re not a dick. But you are lucky. He’s a good friend.”

 _Yeah, he is._ Louis sighed.  _Come here, I want a hug. I’ve got a day to spend with Niall and the divine Charlotte tomorrow, haven’t I? I need lots and lots of moral support and cuddles._

“Why?”

_I already can’t stand the girl and I haven’t even met her yet – chances are, once I do, I’ll utterly despise her and then I’ll have to hang out with her and Niall constantly for god knows how long…there’s nothing worse than being a third wheel, except being a third wheel to someone you don’t know or like._

Harry tutted fondly and patted the sofa beside him; disgruntled, Louis sat down, and Harry pulled him onto his lap. “It’ll be fine. You worry too much, Mr. Grumpy,” he teased.

 _Maybe you don’t worry enough,_ grumbled Louis. But he cuddled up to Harry and closed his eyes, and tried to absorb his unfaltering optimism. Harry’s cheerful positivity had to count for something, right?


	17. Chapter 17

Apparently it did not: Louis took an instant dislike to Niall’s girlfriend from the moment he met her.

She was tall for a girl; maybe half an inch shorter than Niall was, without wearing heels. Her hair was a blood red tangle, like Merida’s from  _Brave,_ except for her fringe, which was a ruler-straight line across her forehead. Her freckles were speckles across the bridge of her nose like the mottled brown spots on the skins of some bananas. Her eyes were dull brown marbles and her mouth was a smear of glistening lipstick, wide and shocking in her porcelain face. She stood very straight and held herself proudly, like she was  _somebody_ , but she spoke with an ugly cockney accent and she wore jeans that clung to her skinny legs like they’d been painted on and a pretentiously hideous sweater, and huge ‘nerdy’ glasses perched on the end of her nose that he didn’t think she needed for medical reasons. And from the moment Louis set eyes on her, he disliked her, her presence an aggravation not dissimilar to an itch that can’t be reached to scratch, or a spot lurking beneath the skin that refuses to emerge.

He could see why Niall liked her. She was pretty, in a very unspectacular way. She had a bright laugh like his, that came easily, and looked like the sort of person who noticed things. But at the same time, he could understand how it was that he disagreed, and found her so fantastically irritating.

“Hi, I’m Charlotte,” she said, pronouncing it ‘Shar-lut’ with soft, slurred Ts, and she held out her hand for him to shake. Her nails were painted matt black, the same colour and texture as a blackboard.

Louis shook her hand and tried to remember how to smile. “Louis.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Niall had left the room to make tea, and Louis had forgotten how to make conversation since finding Harry – they tended to converse in their heads for the most part, and didn’t even need to talk a great deal of the time for it to be comfortable, and to enjoy spending time together. But the room was empty and they needed to fill the space around them with words, and, a distant distraction in the back of his head, was Harry’s faint amusement at how hard Louis was struggling to be  _normal_ after spending so much time with him.

“How old are you?” he asked limply.

Her smile came easily and dazzlingly brightly, like it was the best question anyone had ever asked. “Eighteen, you?”

“Uh, twenty-one. Um. What are you studying? You’re at uni, right?”

“Yeah, Law,” she told him, with another disconcerting smile.

Discouraged by how quickly he had run out of things to say, Louis sat down on the sofa and rested his chin in his hand, leaning heavily on the arm, and heartily wished he wasn’t there. Charlotte followed him, sitting just about far away enough from him for it to be socially acceptable and, to both his relief and chagrin, began talking. Her sentences ran together, like watercolour splodges on damp paper, each word blurring into the next, and it was weirdly soothing. Back at home, Harry was watching a nature programme and had become enthralled by an elephant, which he had never seen before, and Louis found himself smiling fondly at Harry’s enthusiasm.

Niall emerged from the kitchen somehow balancing three cups of tea between two hands, and Charlotte got up to help him, her long body folding outwards like she was made of elastic and someone was stretching her. She was very long and bendy, and Louis thought having sex with her would be like trying to seduce one of those little yellow stretchy men you got in Christmas crackers. When she turned, it was with an artificial toss of her head so that her crimson hair whipped through the air and almost flicked Niall in the face, but he didn’t seem to care about that.

“So are you two getting along?” he asked.

“Yeah!” Charlotte enthused, too bright as usual. It was like she was stuffed full of light-bulbs, light bursting out of her at the seams.

Louis made a vague noise of agreement.

“What movie are we watching, Ni?” asked Charlotte, and Louis wondered if it would be rude to vomit in his cup of tea.  _Ni._ Gross.

The blond produced some predictably gory horror about zombies or aliens or zombified aliens, and they all sat watching. Niall had an arm around Charlotte and she was coiled around him like a snake, squealing delightedly and making comments which Niall either found brilliant, or hilarious. Louis sat and sulked and wished he wasn’t there, and every so often he’d sigh heavily or roll his eyes at the screen and they’d both turn and stare at him sympathetically, like he was to be pitied because he was so pitifully single and had no one to snuggle with. He wanted to tell them that he had his own relationship, thank you, and a cuddly boy with hair in adorable disarray and a perpetual excitement for the world that actually had a _reason,_ and that his boyfriend was bleak and shadowy everywhere that Charlotte was disgustingly bright – that he could snuggle with Harry without an assault to the eyes, and that they didn’t need to watch crappy movies and talk for hours to be happy. But he couldn’t show Harry to anyone yet; they both needed some more practice at being ‘normal’, so he stayed scowling and in remarkably bad temper, until the ending credits were scrolling and only two members of the main cast – an all-American heterosexual couple with pearly teeth who glowed with cleanliness underneath fake blood trails and a smattering of grime and looked like a pair of models – had survived.

“Wow, that was great!” Niall cheered, disentangling himself from his girlfriend and popping the DVD out of the player. “Now what?”

“Let’s watch  _Slenderman_ again!” burbled Charlotte, “it’s my favourite.”

Niall looked anxious. “Um…that film kind of freaked Louis out last time…I dunno if that’s the best idea…”

Anger flared in Louis’ chest at the mere mention of the film. The thought of some crude CGI blob streaking across the screen, a mockery of everything that Harry was – beautiful, lonely, confused, sad, desperate to be loved – well, it made him furious. He remembered the blurry graphics, awful storyline and stupid ending with disgust, as if it had personally offended him, and he imagined how Harry would feel if he could see what people thought he was, their representation of him, and he felt sick.

“Nah, that’s okay, you guys just watch it. I’m going home.” He picked up his coat off the floor, remembering how, as he had almost walked out of the house without it, Harry’s shadows had tapped him on the shoulder and then slid the coat around his shoulders, voice chiming in his head that it was going to get cold later. He’d been right; Louis could hear the wind screaming outside, and through the window he could see a whirlwind of leaves flying around like a miniature tornado.

Charlotte blinked, her eyes too little and dull to look properly doe-eyed. “I’m sorry, we can watch somefin’ else if it upsets you,” she cooed.

Yeah, Louis hated her.

“No, thanks. I have to get back. There’s this – thing. Very important. Bye.”

Louis walked out very quickly, stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his coat and yanking the door open. Immediately, the wind snagged at the lapels of his trench coat and pulled at his hair, making him gasp, and he stayed shivering, stunned by the sudden onslaught of cold that had come over him. That was how he heard Charlotte’s words drifting down the hallway before he could slam the door.

“No, no, I’m sure he’s just shy. And it must be  _awful_ for him, seeing us all cosy when he’s got nobody to be with. But he’s kind of  _surly,_ in’t he? I suppose it ain’t really a surprise. You should try to get him to open up more, Ni, no wonder he’s single when he’s like that.”

Outraged, Louis slammed the door (a few seconds too early to hear Niall leap to his defence with “He’s just having an off day, he’s great to hang out with usually, something’s just rubbed him up the wrong way today.”) and stormed off, walking right into the wind and grumbling to himself.

He’d been walking only a few minutes when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye, the slightest flicker of darkness, as if a crow had flown past and narrowly missed clipping him with its wings. He whirled around, and by the time he’d come full circle and was back to facing where he’d started, Harry was stood in front of him, grinning, hands in his pockets.

He wore a pair of Louis’ jeans; too short for him, and too baggy, and one of Louis’ old sweaters, a knitted purple thing that he’d banished to the back of his wardrobe in shame after one too many people had accused him of looking like a grape. His hair was adorably ruffled by the wind, colour had come to his cheeks, and his smile was almost too big for his face – but it wasn’t the eye-aching, artificial light-bulb smile that Charlotte had plastered across her face; this was a smile that was genuinely too big, because Harry was so happy he couldn’t restrain himself. The light of this smile blazed like the sun, moon and stars. It had taken a while for Harry to get the hang of facial expression, but now he couldn’t seem to hold it back.

Picking up on Louis’ annoyance, Harry tilted his head and confusion flitted across his face, chasing away that beautiful smile. He touched Louis’ arm and a wave of curiosity came flooding across their mental link, like a question-mark. Shaking his head, Louis lightly tapped Harry on his full lower lip; a reminder, and Harry realised that he’d forgotten how to be ‘normal’ again, and with a frown furrowing his forehead in acknowledgement of his mistake, he started to speak.

“Why?”

“Why, what?” Louis prompted gently.

Harry huffed impatiently. “ _Why_?” he repeated, tugging Louis’ sleeve.

“Take your time,” Louis told him gently. “What are you trying to say?”

“Why…are you annoyed?”

“I don’t like Niall’s new girlfriend,” Louis scowled, and he sent an image of Charlotte, with her spindly, spidery limbs and explosion of hair and contrived grins, into Harry’s head. Immediately, Harry wrinkled his nose.

“I don’t like her either,” he decided. “She hurts my eyes. She’s too red. She’s a strawberry girl.”

Louis giggled, and Harry beamed, pleased at having made him laugh. His fingertips fluttered over the crinkles around Louis’ eyes, and shadows coiled around his fingers like wreaths, vines growing over his skin.

At a warning look from Louis, Harry pulled the shadows back into himself and smiled sheepishly, the wind playing with his hair, the drab sky above them the colour of dirty cotton wool. Harry’s eyes were wide and full of wonder as he stared at Louis like he would never get another look – once upon a time, Louis had found that disconcerting, but now, he found it sweet.

“Why does Niall like her?” he asked with a frown.

Louis frowned, too. “I don’t know. She likes the same movies as him, and I suppose she’s pretty. She laughs a lot. Maybe she’s fun to be around.”

After a lot of consideration, Harry announced, “You don’t laugh very much, not as much as she does…I’d like you to laugh more. But your laughs are special. I don’t think it’s nice if someone laughs all the time, because they don’t mean it. When you laugh, I know you’re happy.”

Louis smiled at him. “That’s true.”

“I like the same movies as you, but that’s just because I like every movie. And you’re pretty.” Harry frowned again. “Am  _I_  pretty, Louis?”

“You’re very pretty, Harry.”

“But  _am_ I?” Harry persisted, “or are you just saying that because you love me?”

“I’m saying it because it’s true.”

Harry lit up again with a smile like starlight, and Louis wanted to kiss him, but he also just wanted to look at him. To look at his eyes, which were emeralds nestling in cushions of moss, and his skin, which was snow-covered porcelain, and his mouth, pink roses, bitten and shining. But before he had looked for anywhere near as long as he would have liked, Harry leapt forward and hugged him all of a sudden, burying his face in Louis’ shoulder and squeezing, and Louis was surprised, but he squeezed back with all his might, crushing Harry against his chest. He rubbed his back, feeling sharp shoulder-blades like stumps of wings ready to sprout, and felt Harry breathing against his neck, and Harry’s voice chimed like bells in his head,  _I love you_ ringing through every atom of him like it was a part of the blood pumping through his veins, flooding through his whole body. It hurt to breathe, because he loved Harry that much.

“I love you too,” he whispered.         

Harry beamed at him, and then glanced around before saying with a mischievous glint in his eye,  _Are we going to take a short cut home?_

“No,” Louis said sternly, “we are going to  _walk._ Like  _ordinary_ people.” But he couldn’t stand to see Harry looking wounded – even though he probably did it on purpose – so he quickly added, “walking leaves plenty of time for talking, right? By the looks of it, you could do with a bit of practicing at that.” He poked Harry’s lower lip again, and grinned.

 _Okay,_ Harry grumbled, pretending to sulk, then he hastily corrected himself, “Okay!”

“Cute,” Louis said softly, and he grabbed Harry’s hand and they started walking.

“So what did you do with Niall and ‘ _Shar-lut_ ’?” Harry mimicked, in a brilliantly accurate representation of her annoying accent. Louis was sure no one from London actually sounded like that, it was probably yet another thing about her that she accentuated deliberately to make herself stand out.

Harry’s imitation made Louis grin. “Watched movies. They sucked.”

“What movies?” asked Harry curiously.

Louis hesitated. “Uh.  _Chucky._ It was about this doll who came to life and murdered people, or something. And then…I didn’t watch the other one, anyway, I’ve seen it before, it’s awful.” He looked away from Harry, unable to face his earnest gaze with thoughts in mind of that horrible, mocking piece of cinematic shit.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” replied Louis instantly.

Harry was too perceptive for his own good – of course, having a telepathic link didn’t exactly hinder him from knowing when something was the matter, either. “Tell me.”

When no response was forthcoming, he became insistent. They had stopped walking. Closing his eyes, Harry tried to force his way closer into Louis’ mind, strengthening the connection and concentrating very hard on what Louis was thinking. However, they’d both long since perfected the art of blocking each other out, and Louis reflexively threw up barriers around his consciousness, a wall to keep Harry from rifling through his thoughts. It made him angry that he’d even tried. Through an unspoken agreement, they never went looking at things in each other’s heads that they didn’t want each other to see – as far as Louis was concerned, a lack of trust and invasion of privacy like that was akin to going through someone’s phone and checking their texts, and he wouldn’t stand for it. Outraged, he snatched his hand free of Harry’s long-fingered hold and stepped right to the edge of the pavement, practically standing in the road.

“Don’t you do that again. You know how much I hate it. Just because you can get into my mind doesn’t mean you can abuse that and go looking at things I don’t want you to see!”

Harry looked frustrated, but said nothing.

“I share everything with you. If there’s something I don’t want to tell you, you should  _know_  I have a good reason!”

Harry’s lips parted with a pop and he tried to talk, but he was distressed, and he always lost his handle on speech when he was emotional. Struggling to make himself heard, he whined pathetically and widened his eyes, tugging on Louis’ sleeve. He tried to speak to him mentally, but the block kept everything out, and Louis could feel the faint echoes of his voice battering uselessly against the walls around his consciousness, but he couldn’t hear them clearly enough to know what he was saying.

Bumping his nose against Louis’ jaw, Harry keened in distress, but Louis folded his arms.

Hurt, Harry backed away from him, his eyes swimming with upset. Louis was angry, and not thinking straight. He turned around and stormed right into the road, too furious and intent on a dramatic exit to look both ways. It was dim, the afternoon beginning to fade into evening, but as he stomped across he noticed that he was caught in a floodlight, brightness all around him, hurting his eyes. Squinting, Louis turned towards the source of it, aware of a horrible harsh sound blaring, searing his ears with its crudeness. Everything seemed to have slowed down all of a sudden, his movements heavy and sluggish, like he was trying to move in water.

Harry’s voice was so loud, so frantic, that it shattered through the barriers in his mind, making him stagger even as he cringed away from the burning brightness of the car’s headlights, dazzling him like he was staring directly into the sun.  _LOUIS!!_

He hit the ground, skidding across uneven tarmac and feeling little pieces of gravel embedding themselves in his skin, ripping at it and stinging his hands and legs. He slid across the rough surface without stopping until he hit something, his back colliding with a blunt surface with a crunch, knocking the breath out of him. Dazed, he lay on his side with his ears ringing, vision blurred. He’d forgotten how to breathe. There was a heavy weight on his chest.

For what felt like years, Louis lay in the road, trying to focus through the ringing in his ears and the feeling like his head was underwater. His chest ached with the pressure on it, his hands and his legs burned slightly where he had scraped them on the floor, a distant throb that he was only just aware of, and he couldn’t seem to move. Everything was a blur, not like the world had stopped turning, but like it had suddenly sped up and everything was hurtling around far too fast. He felt like he was on a carousel, lying flat on it and it was out of control. Nothing would stop spinning; his head refused to clear.

Then he breathed in, a shuddering gasp, and everything came back into painful focus.

The driver, a harried middle-aged woman with a messy ponytail streaked with grey, and four open-mouthed kids crammed into the back of her car, was hanging out of her window hollering at him. Louis was still a little stunned, but for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to lift his arm and wave sheepishly at her.

She yelled a bit more abuse, honked the horn several times for effect, then rolled the window back up and sped off. Louis decided she hadn’t hit him – if she had, then surely she’d be on her knees screaming in horror and calling an ambulance for him. She seemed like the type. Even if she hadn’t been, hit and run drivers didn’t usually linger to yell at the people they’d run down – they just didn’t stop.

But his chest hurt, so if  _she_  hadn’t hit him, what had?

He tried to lift his head, and then discovered that the heaviness on his chest was not a mere sensation, but a physical thing. Confused, he moved his hand, still frozen halfway through an idiotic wave, and went to touch it. His fingers found silky warmth, and he started running them through it absentmindedly before he realised that it was hair. He tilted his head uncomfortably, trying to get a better look, and then he felt the grip on him tighten and discovered that Harry was clinging to him, face buried in his chest. His lanky body was trembling, and as Louis stared at him, he felt an explosive sob burst from Harry’s mouth, so strong that he felt it through his coat and sweater.

“Harry?” His stomach lurched with panic. “Fuck, Harry, are you okay?”

 _Twat_! Harry yelled, lifting his tearstained face to meet Louis’ gaze with a damp, but nonetheless ferocious expression.  _Don’t you dare ask me that! Never do that to me again you fucking fuckery fucker! Never never never never NEVER!_ He started hammering on Louis’ chest with his fists, ignoring Louis’ protests of ‘ow!’

“Harry, that  _hurts_!”

 _GOOD!_ Harry yelled.  _That’s the idea! Run into the road, why don’t you, after all those times you told me to look both ways? Almost get hit by a fucking car! I thought you were going to die! I THOUGHT I WASN’T GOING TO GET THERE IN TIME! I’VE NEVER MOVED THAT FAST IN MY LIFE, LOUIS, YOU FUCKING FUCKER –_ Disgusted, Harry crawled a little further up his chest, pressing him flat against the road, and pressed his nose so closely against Louis’ that it hurt, that he was physically squashing their faces together.  _What. Is. So. Funny?_ he growled.

Because Louis was lying there laughing; he was in absolute paralytics. His stomach was already hurting from the force of it, his eyes filling with tears, and in response to Harry’s fury and their faces shoved together, he laughed even harder.

 _So help me, Louis,_ Harry began to threaten, but Louis managed to hold back his giggles for just long enough to plant an amused kiss right on Harry’s open mouth.

“It would seem,” he said with great amusement, “that…oh, god…it would seem that perhaps we really do need to invest in a swear-jar. Your  _mouth_! How did I ever think you were innocent? Christ, I’ve never heard such language in all my days!”

 _Fuck off,_ Harry grumbled, and then kissed him again, and when they stopped kissing after several more minutes, he was unable to stop himself from grinning right back.  _Alright, so I swear too much, but you’re an idiot. Almost getting yourself run over!_

Now that his own heart had stopped hammering, Louis was able to make the transition to speaking mentally.  _Yes,_ he said mildly,  _that_ was  _rather stupid of me, but in retrospect, are you aware that we’re still lying in the middle of the road?_

Harry’s eyes widened so much that Louis half expected them to fall out. Instantly, he hauled Louis to his feet far faster than an ordinary human could have, and as Louis was about to scold him for being so blatantly inhuman when they weren’t even in any immediate physical danger (until the next car came along, of course) he grabbed Louis by the waist and by the time Louis had grabbed him back, they were standing in his living room.

“Harry! God, I told you, we have to start trying to be  _normal_!”  _And I didn’t know you could take me along for the ride…_

“You’re not  _safe_ to be out there pretending to be normal! I don’t think  _you_  should ever be allowed to leave this house again, never mind me!”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Louis conceded, then his hands found their way underneath Harry’s jumper and he pulled him closer for a kiss. “Maybe you should place me under house arrest,” he murmured.

Rolling his eyes, Harry muttered, “Unbelievable. Almost gets hit by a car, and what’s the first thing on his mind? Sex. You’re such a  _man_.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” murmured Louis, pushing the fabric of his jumper aside to kiss his neck. He wondered if he’d ever heard Harry say ‘sex’ before. He didn’t think he had. They’d never really discussed it, either. Aside from several kisses getting rather heated – and Louis had always put a stop to things before they progressed any further, thinking Harry wasn’t ready – they’d been rather chaste. “Mm…I like this jumper on you, by the way. Doesn’t make  _you_ look like a grape.” He decided to see how far Harry would take things. Lately, he’d been so human that Louis was almost beginning to forget that he wasn’t. Maybe it was time to push the limits a little.

“You’re rambling. Are you sure you’re not concussed?”

“Not entirely, but shut up. I’m trying to seduce you.”

Harry smirked. “Oh, it’s  _definitely_ working.”

“Is it?”

He snorted. “No. I’m no expert, but speaking from personal experience, I think you should probably stop talking.” Skimming his nose down Louis’ throat, he murmured, “you babble when you’re nervous,” and it sounded far hotter than it should have done.

Louis swallowed. “Well, you know me, I love the sound of my own voice. Absolutely revel in it. I used to talk in my sleep when I was a kid and everything, never shut up, me –”

Harry bit lightly on the point of his collarbone, tracing over the shape of it with his tongue.  _Shush,_ he said gently.

Trying not to shiver with longing in case Harry misinterpreted it, Louis asked with a hitch in his breath, “You gonna make me?”

“Hell yeah, I’m gonna make you,” Harry said with a wicked smirk, and he gave him a tiny little push.

It was gentle and wouldn’t have moved Louis at all if it hadn’t surprised him so much; he stepped back, fell over one of Harry’s large feet, and started to fall over backwards with a little yelp. Flailing helplessly for something to stop his fall, he was extremely surprised to land, not on the floor, but on the rumpled covers of his own bed, with Harry lying on top of him, kissing him eagerly.

Louis tried to slow things down a little, pulling back slightly, his kisses like whispers against Harry’s very pink mouth. But Harry was kissing him more and more insistently, fingers running through his hair, pulling away from his mouth and kissing down his neck, sucking at his collarbones, and they’d always been a weak spot of Louis’. His body was reacting, hips jerking up against his will to meet Harry’s, and Harry eagerly pressed back. His hand was wandering down, down, down, fingers trailing down Louis’ chest, then his stomach, dipping underneath the hem of his shirt to trace swirls over his stomach and swoop down the fine little dusting of hairs disappearing into his jeans –

 _Fuck_ me _,_ Louis thought helplessly. If this went any further he didn’t know how he was going to hold back, he was getting so turned on already. He had to take a deep, steadying breath before he found the willpower to grab Harry’s wrist and gently move his hand back up to rest on his neck again.

Harry made a displeased sound and bit his exposed neck, pulling his shirt aside for better access. Louis closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing and think about relaxing but non-arousing things, but how could he think of anything but Harry’s hands on him, and the strange feeling of being touched in other places by shadows, the lightest of touches trailing over the backs of his thighs and over his bum and all the places that Harry couldn’t reach.

“Fuck  _me_ ,” he groaned aloud.

He had meant it as a profanity, not an invitation, but Harry misunderstood him. Louis wasn’t sure whether it was deliberate or not.

“Okay,” Harry said seriously. “I will.” And he started tugging at the button of Louis’ jeans, the fabric shifting just enough to rub Louis through his boxers and make him groan loudly, and that was when he decided that this had gone far enough and they both needed to calm down a little bit.

“Time out!” he said.

Harry sat up and blinked at him. “Huh?”

“You heard me. We’re having a time out. We need to talk. Come on, get off me for a second –  _all_ of you,” he said sternly, attempting to brush the little tendrils of shadow off his skin. They confused him, because he could feel them, soft and corporeal against his body, but when he tried to touch them and initiate the contact himself, his fingers went right through them, like they were ordinary shadows.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes like a teenager who was perpetually annoyed at the world. Louis remembered that feeling very well. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” replied Louis, fastening up his jeans, adjusting them and resisting the urge to let his fingers linger on the seam.  _Less touching, more talking._

Harry pouted. “Sounds like it should be the other way round. Actions speak louder than words.”

“Be that as it may, in some cases I find that it’s better to actually get verbal consent rather than just assuming. Actions can be misleading and in any case, it’s better to be safe than sorry, yeah?”

Harry looked confused.

“Humour me?” Louis requested.

“Oh, all right.” Wriggling backwards, Harry went to sit cross-legged on the far end of the bed and he rested his hands on his lap. After a moment’s consideration, he smirked and put them behind his back. “I’m being good.”

Looking down at the darkness that still enshrouded his bare arms, Louis raised his eyebrows. “Are you?”

“Oh, right.” The shadows went recoiling back towards him like snapped elastic, disintegrating into little puffs of black smoke and then nothing when they hit his skin. Blinking innocently, Harry raised his own eyebrows in return. “Better?”

“Much,” Louis said dryly. “Now, I think we should probably talk about what you just said.”

“What’s to discuss? You said ‘fuck me’. I said ‘okay’. What could be simpler than that? Done, discussed, now c’mere.” Harry reached eagerly for him, but quailed at Louis’ sharp look and sat back again, hands clasped behind his back again.

“I just want to make sure. Do you – I mean, did –”

“Sorry, should I rephrase? You said ‘fuck me’, and I said ‘okay’. I’d like to reconsider that statement. Will you say it again?”

“I – um. Fuck me?”

Harry smirked. “Yes please.”

Louis gaped at him, completely lost for words. Seeming to enjoy the effect he’d had, Harry grinned at him wickedly, waiting for him to pull himself together and answer. Louis’ mouth worked around words that wouldn’t come, and all the while Harry grinned.

“Well, um. That’s. Uh. I think we should probably, um, establish, like…um. Will you stop grinning at me like that, please?” he asked helplessly.

“Why?” asked Harry, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Does it bother you?”

Huffing impatiently, Louis replied “Yes.”

After a moment, Harry realised that he was genuinely upset and the grin slid off his face in an instant. “I’m sorry.” Leaning forwards, he reached for Louis’ hands, caught himself at the last minute and tucked them back behind him, smiling with rueful amusement.

Louis couldn’t help but laugh quietly at him, fondly patting his cheek. “Okay, let’s talk.” He reached for Harry’s wrists and pulled his hands into his lap, stroking his knuckles with his thumbs.

He took a few seconds to think about his approach. Like he’d said, he always wanted to be sure before he had sex with someone – spontaneity might have been his usual approach to everything, but in some cases it was best to be completely sure of what you were doing. For this reason, he’d never randomly sprung sex upon anyone – not for their first time, anyway. He hadn’t had many relationships, but he’d always been sure to have the Are We Ready conversation before they went the whole way, and this time was to be no exception. In fact, in Harry’s case, it was probably even more important to have it. Impressionable as he was, Harry was also very suggestible, and the last thing that Louis wanted to do was to make him think he wanted something without being sure of it himself. Another issue was their mental and emotional link – each of them unconsciously influenced the other with his own feelings, and if Louis wanted something badly enough then he could perhaps confuse himself, thinking Harry wanted it too. Or maybe Harry  _would_ want it too. But Louis wanted it to be Harry’s choice, completely uninfluenced by his own desires and decisions. Thus, he had to be very careful how he chose to proceed.

Blushing, Louis fumbled with the duvet and kept his eyes glued to the bed, too embarrassed to look Harry in the eye. “You…know about what sex is, obviously.” That much was obvious; Harry laughed too hard at all the innuendos in all the children’s TV programmes that he watched to be clueless about sex. He knew a great deal more than Louis would have expected him to, actually, bearing in mind his complete lack of experience.

“I know the theory,” Harry said dryly. He was becoming more human every day, Louis thought almost wistfully; it was encouraging to think that hopefully Harry would soon be able to pass for an average, if slightly oddly mannered human being in normal company, so that he wouldn’t have to hide at home and avoid visitors or all attempts at contact besides Louis for the rest of his life, but at the same time, the nervous, vulnerable, almost  _alien_  creature he’d first fallen in love with was fading into the background a little more every day. He was still  _Harry,_ and he was stronger now, better – less frightened and ashamed simply for being who he was – but there would come a time when Louis would start to miss having a gangly, confused, overexcited child to look after. “It’s a physical display of love and affection, supposedly between consenting adults, and most people are at it like rabbits because if you do it right, it’s ‘mind-blowing’. Or…a  _different_  sort of blowing.” Harry gave him a naughty smile and reminded him, “I’ve never had a chance to put it into practice.”

Despite his teasing, obviously intended to put him at ease, Louis was still nervous. “And, uh…if I… _offered_ you that chance…what would your response be?”

Appraising him, Harry said a little worriedly, “I’d say yes; I want to show you I love you…but I can’t promise I’d be any good at it.”

Now that he had his answer, Louis felt a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. He stroked Harry’s arm and said lightly, “Well you know what they say; it’s all in the leading…” Then another thought struck him, and he worriedly nibbled his lower lip. “Um. You do…you do know how it works…between two men, right?”

Harry gave him a dirty look.

Relieved, Louis hastily said “Sorry, sorry – just checking.”

They sat in silence for a while, Louis absently playing with Harry’s fingers while Harry watched and said nothing, apparently entranced by watching their two sets of digits sliding together. Harry was struggling to gather up the courage to ask a question; Louis could feel the thrum of nervous curiosity reverberating through their mental link, and he stayed quiet to give Harry the chance to say it out loud. Harry didn’t.

Once he’d decided that Harry wasn’t going to voice whatever was on his mind, Louis turned to him, mouth opened to ask what was bothering him, and Harry lunged unexpectedly forwards. Their mouths collided with a soft smack, lips sealing together with a comfortable familiarity which meant that Louis’ initial shock faded almost instantly. Closing his eyes, he settled into a more comfortable position (although for Harry, who was kneeling forwards with one long-fingered hand cupped around Louis’ neck and struggling not to fall into his cross-legged lap, it was actually quite an awkward position to be in) and let the kiss take over; the warmth of Harry’s mouth, the gentle slide of lips, and the occasional click of teeth when Harry’s uncomfortable position made him slip. Louis’ fingers found their way into Harry’s curls and by the time he broke it off and turned his head away, he was gasping for breath; his lips would be plump and tender for hours afterwards if they kept this up. Not that he minded. He let out a surprised laugh, and was about to ask “what was  _that_  for?” when Harry came diving at him from the side and caught his mouth in another kiss, almost pleadingly this time. Bewildered, Louis kissed him back, but once again he pulled away, after a shorter time this time, and this time he turned his head to the side, tucking his face into Harry’s shoulder in such a way that no amount of contortion would allow Harry to kiss him again until he moved.

“Harry, what –?”

Not to be so easily dissuaded, Harry directed his attentions to the suddenly rather exposed curve of Louis’ neck; his mouth latched onto the underneath of Louis’ jaw and he busily set about the task of sucking a livid purple bruise into the skin there. Louis’ breath hitched in his throat and his fingers in Harry’s hair tightened in response, but he was still utterly confused as to where this was going.

It surprised him even more when Harry’s cool, shaking fingers slipped underneath his jumper, and then underneath the shirt he was wearing underneath it, and found his waist. After a moment’s hesitation, Harry gave Louis a tug, using his superior strength as leverage, and all of a sudden Louis found himself falling backwards, his head landing neatly on his pillow; he hurriedly unfolded his legs as they shrieked in discomfort at the unnatural position. Straddling him and sitting on his stomach, Harry continued expertly deepening the bruise with his tongue, and Louis was so confused by his actions that he decided he had to intervene; he twisted his fingers in the two handfuls of curls he was hanging onto for dear life, sent a mental pang of apology Harry’s way and then  _wrenched,_ yanking viciously at Harry’s sensitive curls so that Harry hissed in pain. His teeth closed on Louis’ neck with an instinctive snap, making Louis flinch almost as much as the noise of pain had, and Harry hurriedly jerked away from him. His eyes were burning with regret. He looked at the teeth marks on Louis’ neck in dismay, glistening wetly as they were, and touched them lightly as if they were just an illusion and he could smooth them over with his fingertips. Louis wrinkled his nose and leaned away from the contact, and Harry’s wide-eyed gaze met his, accompanied with a wave of confusion.

“Harry, I don’t understand, what on earth are you doing?”

“Why did you pull away from me?” Harry asked miserably. “Don’t you like me anymore?”

What had he been saying about Harry losing his childlike stance on life? When he said things like that, he looked like a lonely little boy who wanted to know why the other children didn’t want to play with him.

“ _Harry,_ of course I still like you, don’t be ridiculous! I just don’t understand where this has come from! It’s not that I don’t  _want_ to, but you’ve surprised me. What’s brought this on, love?” He touched Harry’s wrist questioningly.

Harry flushed. “I was trying to seduce you. I saw it…on TV. This is how you do it, right?”

“Wh –  _seduce_ me, what for?”

“We were talking about sex. I want to do it.”

“I didn’t mean  _now,_ ” Louis said, appalled, “Jesus Christ, Harry, I do have  _some_ concept of subtlety. I was just  _talking_.”

“Don’t you want to have sex with me?”

“Wh – of course I do, but –”

“Well, why not now?”

“I – Harry, I was just talking  _hypothetically._ For when you’re ready, when  _we’re_ ready, when we both decide it’s the right time and place, I wanted to make sure you knew what we were doing and I didn’t confuse you or upset you – I wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t freak out when we did it. Because I wasn’t sure, when you said ‘okay’, if you were joking, or if you knew what you were saying, or whatever. I wasn’t trying to drop hints, or pressurize you, or whatever you think I was doing. I was just talking about it, I don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything.”

“I don’t feel  _obligated_ ,” Harry said, stung, “I  _want_ to.”

“I don’t –”

Frustrated, Harry pressed a finger against Louis’ lips, silencing him. Louis pouted from underneath his finger, but Harry didn’t remove it. Instead, he gave Louis a long look which basically said  _stop talking,_ and when he was sure that Louis was going to what he’d been told, he dropped his hand and then shuffled backwards a little bit so that he was sitting on Louis’ hips rather than his stomach. It did nothing to calm Louis’ racing pulse, but it did make things a bit more comfortable so that he was feeling far less squashed.

“You don’t understand. You don’t  _know._ You don’t know how pretty you are, with your  _eyes_ and your _smile_ and your  _hair._ ” With every emphasized word, Harry gave him a little poke in the chest. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you and I always  _will_ want you, don’t you know that by now? You’re the first. You’re the last. You don’t know how you make me feel.”

Desire crashed over Louis like a tidal wave, fuelled by Harry’s memories of heated kisses and lingering touches that didn’t linger anywhere near long enough, and his longing for even more contact – accompanied by a background of building heat and interspersed with flashes of what looked like scenes from some kind of gay porn channel (Louis distractedly resolved to block that particular channel from the TV; Harry was like a child who couldn’t be trusted with the remote). Almost pleadingly, Harry kissed him on the neck, softly at first, but then more insistently, his mouth pressing harder and staying in each spot a little longer, sucking too softly to leave marks but firmly enough for Louis to most definitely know that he was there. His warm weight pressed against Louis meant that Louis had his very own filthy slideshow of erotic movies running through his mind as well as the ones that Harry was providing him with, although his own were involuntary, whereas Harry was pressing the images against his mind as an incentive which, unfortunately, was kind of working.  _You don’t know how you make me feel,_ he repeated.

Louis’ eyes had glazed over with longing; he was fighting so hard for control that he sounded like a zombie as he said hoarsely, “Tell me.”

“I’ll show you?” Harry offered, and then Louis groaned in resignation and pulled Harry down on top of him.

They lay and kissed for what felt like forever, whilst Louis vainly tried to convince himself that he could leave it as nothing more than that. He could just kiss Harry and persuade him that he did love him but it wasn’t the right time, and they’d do this when Harry was ready, and basically he’d gently fob him off and push back his own feelings for the sake of making sure that Harry didn’t get hurt.

In retrospect, they both knew that wasn’t going to happen. It was just a question of how long Louis could valiantly cling to the conviction that he was going to be able to do what he thought was the right thing.

Ten minutes, it turned out, before Louis started tugging at Harry’s jumper, rolling the sleeves back from where they fell over his hands and then giving up on that idea and simply pulling it over his head, while Harry stretched his arms up and let him do it, his own eyes wide and his pupils expanding blackly to cover almost the whole iris. Louis had never seen such a slim band of colour around anyone’s pupil before; it was as if the shadows Harry commanded (which were dancing uncontrollably around his curly head like a dark halo at that exact moment in time) had filtered into his eyes and were swirling around inside his iris, filling it completely. He looked dark and dangerous and so hot, Louis could hardly breathe. He dropped Harry’s red sweater onto the floor, where it vanished in a puff of black mist which then coiled up to join the stream of darkness that was dancing on the surface of Harry’s skin, a visible aura that flickered higher with every touch between them. Harry grabbed Louis’ hair and roughly yanked his head back, and then found a new spot on his neck to make a mark, and Louis’ gentle reminder to be careful was replaced by “Oh!” as the heated pressure of Harry’s mouth rid him of whatever vestiges of conscious thought had still been lingering somewhere at the back of his mind.

Harry’s hands started fumbling with the button of Louis’ jeans, and Louis eagerly struggled to help him, fighting to tug down the skin-tight denim fabric. He fought to rid himself of it, kicking and struggling, and it kind of ruined the mood a little when Harry had to scramble off his lap and grab the jeans by the ankles and try to pull them off for him, but eventually with a low noise of frustration Harry lifted his hand and razor-sharp shadows flashed, and the jeans fell to pieces in thick denim ribbons around Louis’ thighs, as if clawed to pieces by some kind of animal. Bordering on hysteria, Louis watched Harry discard the ruined material with only a fleeting thought of dismay for his (ex) favourite jeans, and then Harry was back on top of him and Louis got his revenge by ripping Harry’s shirt open without undoing the buttons – not that it mattered; Harry was keeping the shirt in place by sheer force of will, and even as Louis tore it off his shoulders it dissipated, becoming shadows in his hands.

For a moment, Harry looked down at where Louis lay trapped underneath him, and then a slow grin spread right across his face. He started nipping again at the skin of Louis’ jaw, sending flashes of lightning down Louis’ spine and across his vision; the world was hot and distorted.

“Wait, wait,” Louis gasped, his hands on Harry’s bare shoulders. There were certain measures that needed to be taken before he lost his senses completely.

Harry growled at him, clearly telling him to shut up, and for a moment Louis was tempted to do just that; to lie back and let Harry ravage his neck and screw everything, let whatever needed to happen just _happen._ But he was determined to make sure that this went right, and unfortunately that meant delaying things for a moment just to talk things through, so he pushed Harry backwards with all the strength he possessed. If he’d been so minded, Harry could easily have resisted, but there was no way that he would do anything against Louis’ wishes. With a sigh, he allowed Louis to push him away; Louis shuddered with longing as he heard Harry’s plump lips leave his neck with a soft, wet  _pop_. Looking both frustrated and wounded at the same time, Harry gave him a questioning stare.

“You know how this works,” Louis said breathlessly. “I have to ask – do you want to…?” He made a slightly crude gesture. “Or should I?”

For a moment, Harry considered, pink tongue gliding enticingly over his lower lip as he thought. His eyes flickered up and down Louis’ face, and then he said, “You. I’m clumsy…I don’t want to fuck it up.” Louis nearly laughed and said ‘that’s the idea’, but Harry honestly looked worried by the thought. It was understandable. Harry didn’t know his own strength, and he tended to lose control of himself a little when he was overwhelmed; perhaps it was a good idea to let Louis take the reins. Still, Harry was looking a little anxious, so to reassure him, Louis gently touched his cheek.

“Are you sure, love? I’ll do it if that’s what you want, but just…I’m not trying to scare you, okay? But you know it’s going to  _hurt._ ”

In response, Harry gave him a small smile, then slid off him and lay flat on his stomach on the bed, face turned to the side, one cheek pressed to the duvet with his eyes glued to Louis. He was still for a moment, and then the remainder of the clothes that he hadn’t already removed with Louis’ help disintegrated into shadows that dissolved into nothingness, and there he lay, completely naked, quietly waiting for Louis. The submissive gesture was so ridiculously hot that it was all Louis could do not to come right there and then; if he had been hard before (try to hide it as he might) now he was aching. Biting down hard on his lower lip to hold back a moan, he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped his boxers to his ankles, kicking them off and leaving them in a little heap on the floor. He slid off the bed, and while Harry settled into a more comfortable position in the centre of the bed, he opened the drawer in his beside cabinet and squeezed a generous amount of lube onto his two index fingers.

The bed creaked as he knelt between Harry’s legs, and Harry closed his eyes, still smiling slightly, his whole body astonishingly relaxed. It was a testament to how much faith he had in Louis that he didn’t so much as flinch as Louis’ slick fingers warningly brushed against the base of his spine, letting him know that he was about to begin. For a moment, Louis wondered whether he should give him one last chance to back out – but Harry seemed so relaxed, so calm, that he thought it would be insulting to ask.

“I trust you,” Harry said softly.

Louis’ first finger barely circled Harry’s hole for an instant before it was slipping inside, and although Harry let out a little mewl of surprise at the contact, he didn’t wince or show any outward signs of discomfort. Giving him a moment to adjust, Louis waited a few more seconds, and then another finger followed the first.

This time Harry pulled a face and wriggled a little, but he didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable, just a little bit disconcerted by the sensation. Louis tentatively scissored his fingers, and Harry’s face suddenly lit up. His eyes flew open, his cheeks immediately flared bright pink. An acid green spark was dancing in each eye as he breathed out slowly, a brilliant smile spread across his face, like a child who had been given a lifetime’s worth of Christmas presents all at once and didn’t know which ones to start opening first.

“Are you okay?” Louis breathed against his neck.

“Mmm…” Harry sighed.

Taking that as a good sign, Louis curled his fingers experimentally – he knew he’d hit the right spot when Harry’s eyes, which had drifted contentedly closed, flew open, wild and shocked. His mouth fell open, and he tilted his head to look over his shoulder at the blue-eyed boy who was smiling down at him, enjoying his reaction. A low, strangled sound ripped its way out of Harry’s throat, and he shivered all over at the sensations dancing through his body that had all been caused by that one fleeting brush on his prostrate.

“Oh,  _God_ …”

“Again?” Louis asked teasingly, enjoying the opportunity to be the one who was in control of the situation for once. “Or maybe you’ve had enough for one day.” He started slowly pulling his fingers out, and Harry made an outraged sound.

An explosion of expletives (“ _fuckfuckdamnitdon’tyoudarefucker_ ” – proof that either Harry had been listening in on too many of his conversations with Niall or Louis swore a lot more than he was consciously aware of or he  _really_ needed to get that child-filter put on the TV) burst into the air around them, making Louis grin even more. He let Harry sweat for a moment or so longer, and then repeated the motion, slowing it down a little so that the slow drag of his fingers against the cluster of nerves would last longer, feel more intense. The groan Harry made in response ended with a needy little pant, and Louis’ cock twitched in response. He was torn already; he wanted to make this experience good for Harry, but at the same time, if he kept making those  _noises_ Louis wasn’t sure how long he was going to last before he’d be no good whatsoever to anyone.

He valiantly summoned the most off-putting mental image at his disposal (that one time when Niall fell asleep with a doughnut in his mouth – drool and chocolate sprinkles  _everywhere_ ) in order to try and cool himself down a little before things got out of hand (or  _into_  Harry’s hand, if he’d had his way right now) but it didn’t seem to help much.

Taking a deep breath, Louis flexed his fingers a few more times and his teeth sank into his lower lip to hold back an extremely embarrassing noise in response to the ones Harry was making. His hands were balled into fists with two handfuls of duvet clenched in each one, and with every new twist of Louis’ fingers came another helpless moan.

Enough was enough, Louis decided, and he pulled his fingers out, enjoying the whine of complaint Harry made at the loss. Louis knelt over him, trailed a couple of reassuring kisses down his spine, and then lined himself up and slowly pushed in. 

He had to press his lips together to keep from swearing at just how ridiculously  _tight_ Harry was, but before he’d even had time to process that and just how hot it was despite the slightly uncomfortable squeezing sensation, Harry locked up underneath him, his whole body going rigid, and Louis gasped as he felt Harry tense around him, whimpering into the bed-sheets. Louis suddenly felt an intense squeezing sensation on his hips, the feeling of fingers digging harshly into his skin, as if Harry had grabbed him and was holding him still, preventing him from moving an inch. Clearly, it hadn’t completely registered with Harry that Louis was a fair bit  _bigger_ than three fingers.

Louis gently reached for his hands and tried to hold his wrists, try and tug them away, because in his shock Harry was holding him in a grip like a vice, so hard that he could already feel the bruises blossoming – he thought he felt something slice into his skin, like nails, but sharper, and felt a trickle and a sting on his hips, and realised with a pang that Harry had grasped him so hard that he was making him bleed. He was astonished that anyone could grip that hard, especially Harry, with his bitten-short nails, but he pushed back the twinges of pain to press his cheek against the smooth skin of Harry’s back, opened his eyes to say something –

Harry’s hands were twisted in the duvet beside his head, knuckles whiter than the rest of his pale skin, teeth locked together and eyes screwed up. It took a couple of deep breaths before Louis could stand to look down to see exactly who or what had hold of him, and he spotted the shadows coiled roughly around him like a pair of enormous, clawed hands. When he made a grab for them they were insubstantial and he couldn’t touch them without his fingers slipping straight through them; they felt like thin air, if a little cooler in temperature than the rest of the surrounding air – but their hold on him was impossibly, painfully strong. Harry had him locked in place, unable to move anything from the waist down.

Panicking, Harry struggled underneath him as if he were going to turn around, and Louis struggled to hold him down, which honestly didn’t really help much. In truth, he wasn’t so sure he wasn’t going to start thrashing and yelling himself in a second, so close he was to having some kind of attack brought about by claustrophobia that he never knew he’d had, so he had to close his eyes and breathe in copious amounts of that familiar, homely,  _Harry_ smell that he knew so well before he trusted himself to speak.

“Shit, Harry, I’m sorry, but – you have to stay still, just – don’t – relax, okay? It’ll be okay, I promise, come on, you trust me, you know you do.  _Calm._ ”

“ _Ow_ ,” Harry whimpered.

“Okay, okay –”

Louis struggled to soothe him with the few flashes of comfort that he could project across the mental link, although he was nowhere near as proficient at the communication as Harry was.

“We can stop,” Louis reminded him, “right now, if you want me to –”

“No –” Harry gasped. “Just – give – me – a minute.”

Louis’ hands fluttered across the tensed muscles of Harry’s back even as his mouth murmured encouragements against Harry’s shoulder-blades, and after a lot of deep breaths, Harry’s body slowly relaxed. Louis felt the exact moment when the shock faded and Harry’s body adjusted to the new, slightly painful sensation, because beneath him, Harry’s whole body loosened, and he breathed slowly out with relief. The shadows on Louis’ waist slid away, and he was free to move again.

“Sorry,” Harry whispered. “I just – didn’t really expect it to hurt.”

Louis decided not to say  _I told you so._

“Are you okay now?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so. Just – move?” Harry pleaded.

Louis’ first thrust was tentative, but well-placed; he hit Harry’s prostrate dead centre, and was rewarded with a low, quivering whimper. Confidence rising in him, he gave a couple more slow, easy thrusts to try and get Harry used to the sensation, and then settled on forming a steadier rhythm. His movements quickly became sloppier and more careless as the sensations started taking over, but his thrusts were still as deep and hit that cluster of nerves dead-centre every time, sending ecstasy curling through Harry’s body every few seconds and making him moan heavily, gasping against the sheets. After a few minutes of that, rocking his hips against Harry and clumsily kissing his neck whenever he managed to gather his wits about him, his hand came around to Harry’s front and started languidly jerking him off, at a pace which anybody else would have laughed at but to Harry, experiencing it for the first time and having pleasure exploding like fireworks inside him every few seconds or so, shooting through his whole body from that one spot, it was so intense that he could hardly breathe.

It was the mental link between them, though, that was the most intense sensation of them all; Louis could feel the tight heat of Harry around him, the thrust of his own hips forwards, the sparks of bliss bursting through him from where their bodies connected – but at the same time, he could feel how Harry felt to have him buried so deeply inside, the burst of pleasure that came with every brush of Harry’s nerves, how his lips felt trailing messily across the back of Harry’s neck, the feeling of his hand on him, slowly moving up and down. Louis was filled with so many sensations he thought he might suffocate.

Harry was incoherent underneath him, his thoughts a mess of  _oh – there, please, like that – I – yes, like – please, Louis, I love you so much_ and a torrent of sensations pouring through his head, heavy and molten like a volcano had exploded inside his brain, and a ridiculous amount of love that trickled so slowly through his veins that it  _hurt_ , lingering as it did. But however overwhelming it was, to have Harry’s thoughts pounding through his own head even as his own threatened to become too much ( _Harry you feel so good, can’t believe this is happening, I’m gonna make you feel so good, just – say my name, say it again, one more time, tell me what you want Harry please – oh)_ it was nothing compared to the sense of joy it gave him, being connected literally everywhere. In their minds, with where their fingers were laced together, flat against the mattress, with his lips resting against the sweaty curls at the nape of Harry’s neck, where he was buried so deeply inside Harry that the heat was almost beginning to feel painful. He could feel a familiar pressure building, could feel that Harry felt it, too, and was almost afraid of it because he didn’t know what it could mean.

His teeth had been closed around the sheets he lay on, trying to hold all of the helpless little noises in (Louis made a silent pact with himself to tell him later just how much he loved them, how he wanted to hear them all) but he lifted his head and choked, “L – Louis,” trying to convey the feeling of that tight build-up inside him through the connection. Louis gently bit him on the shoulder-blade, trying to soothe him and make him feel good at the same time. It partly seemed to work; Harry gasped and arched into his mouth, but Louis could still sense his worry, fluttering underneath the surface of the pleasure like a little butterfly in his stomach trying to get out. Louis didn’t want him to be frightened of this. He wanted everything to stay this  _right_.

“It’s all right,” he promised. “Feels good. It’ll feel even better in a minute. You – you trust me?”

“Yeah,” Harry gasped. “God. Yeah, I trust you.”

Louis did two things just then: he gave one last hard, impossibly deep thrust, and at the same time, he ran his thumb over Harry’s slit.

Harry’s whole body stiffened, locking up again, but this time in a good way – then the explosion of the orgasm reached its peak, burning impossibly hot, and his mouth fell open. His body jerked uncontrollably and he let out a sob of shock before he came, collapsing against the bed as his vision turned white and then faded to black, and he blacked out with Louis still buried deep inside him.

Luckily, Louis wasn’t far behind, he groaned and buried his teeth in Harry’s shoulder, and then he filled Harry up, his hips still bucking weakly as he gently rocked himself through the aftershocks, swearing softly and running his hands down Harry’s body, like the pleasure was going to fill him like a balloon and carry him away, and the pale boy beneath him was the only thing keeping him grounded.

He carefully pulled out, then he rolled onto his side and collapsed beside Harry, draping an arm over his waist as he snuggled closely to him, waiting. It took a few long seconds before Harry’s eyes fluttered open, greener than ever with shock, and his mouth fell open in a little ‘o’ of shock. Beside him, Louis was still shaking a little bit, and he couldn’t seem to muster a smile, but his grip on Harry tightened and he hoped that Harry understood that right now, if he’d been capable of any form of coherent speech, he’d have been telling him just how much he loved him.

Dipping forwards, Harry slipped his nose to the side of Louis’, and he kissed him carefully, slowly, with a kind of undertone of shock still running through him like a faint electrical current.

“What’s on your mind?” Louis asked, and then said teasingly, “as if I don’t know.” It was an old inside joke of theirs, and it had never really been funny in the first place, but it still made a sparkling grin dance across Harry’s face.

Harry opened his mouth, then frowned. He gave a little impatient huff. Apparently, once again, he’d lost his grip on coherent speech. Rolling his eyes, he touched Louis’ cheek.  _Is it always like that?_

“No,” Louis answered honestly, “sometimes it’s really rubbish. Sometimes it’s mediocre. Sometimes it’s better.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him in utter disbelief.  _How could anything…?_

Louis chuckled and rolled over onto his back. “Trust me,” he said to the ceiling, “I wasn’t exactly on top form tonight…I’m out of practice…next time, I can do better than that, don’t you worry. Practice makes perfect, and if you’ve no objections…I can see that we’ll be getting in an awful  _lot_ of practice from now on. Not that you really need any.” He playfully tapped the end of Harry’s nose. “You were really good.”

His expression lit up from the inside, like he was a lightbulb and Louis had just switched him on.  _I didn’t do it wrong?_

“No, baby. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Louis kissed the corner of his mouth. “You were perfect, okay?”

 _But…I grabbed you…_  Harry sat up and shakily traced the deep lacerations on Louis’ body where the shadows, at his panicked command, had seized Louis so fiercely that they had drawn blood. There were thick, ribbon-like scarlet grooves carved into his hips like slender crimson rivers, and they were still sticky with blood. In comparison, Harry’s finger looked whiter than ever. Louis pretended not to wince when Harry touched one of the deepest welts, but Harry felt him twitch, saw his eyes tighten, and he let out a low whine of distress.  _I grabbed you. I_ hurt  _you._ He looked like he might be about to burst into tears.

“It was an accident,” Louis reassured him. “They’re only surface wounds. I should have – I should have prepped you a bit more first, I don’t know. Look at what you did to my jeans! Comparatively, it could have been far worse. You could have sliced me to shreds, remember that. I’m proud of you. The Harry I first met could never have held back like that.” He sat up himself, kissed the top of Harry’s curly head, then breathed in deeply and sank back down, trying to ignore the hot twinges that the cuts gave when he moved. “You looked so beautiful, lying underneath me. Felt so good…I love you so much, you know that?”

Harry’s forehead was still creased with concern. He lowered his head to lightly kiss the marks on Louis’ hips, clearly disquieted by the fact that he’d caused him pain, however determined Louis was to disregard it now.

“Stop it,” Louis whispered as Harry lifted his head, looked at him with anxious eyes and then lowered his lips back to kiss another of the wounds.

Stricken, Harry jerked away from him.  _Am I hurting you?_

“ _No_!” Louis insisted. “You need to stop treating me like I’m made of glass. I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”

 _And I’m not as gullible as you seem to think I am. Look at me._ Look  _at me, Louis, and don’t lie – did I hurt you?_

“No.”

_Lies!_

“Not much.”

Harry growled at him.  _So I did._

“I hurt you too.”

 _You_ warned  _me it was going to hurt. It was my fault that I didn’t listen._

“None of this was  _anyone’s_ fault.” Louis buried his face in Harry’s neck. “I could shake you, you know. Do you have any idea how much you mean to me? You grabbed hold of me and you pulled me out of the darkness when I hadn’t even realised I was in it, and you think I’m going to mope and get pissy over a couple of scratches? I  _love_ you, idiot, and okay, maybe it didn’t go so smoothly, but I’ll  _always_ love you, and – it’s just  _sex,_ Harry, for God’s sake, I don’t want you to get upset over this. Tell me – didn’t it feel good? Wasn’t I the only thing in the world that felt real to you, the only thing that mattered? I want you to tell me how it felt, I want you to remember, and I want you to think very hard about whether a few scrapes mean  _anything_ in comparison to that. How did it feel, hmm? You think very long and hard about this, because I want to know. How did it feel, when the only thing in the whole world you could think of was me?”

It came in flashes across the mental link as Harry cast his mind back; trust, enjoyment, shock, pain, then more pleasure than he ever remembered feeling throughout his whole life all bundled up into one tiny, ridiculously hot little spark that Louis could ignite over and over with just a few thrusts of his hips, and then another that was brought about by the movement of his hand, and then the other boy moaned softly at the onslaught of memories and pulled Louis more closely against him, hands stroking down his back and tracing the contours of his spine, mouth wandering across his collarbones.

 _Louis,_ Harry whispered.

“Yes,” Louis breathed, as if answering a question, and then Harry’s hands were all over him, his body was responding and their breathing was becoming laboured once again, and Harry was remembering everywhere Louis had touched him and copying it, so that there wasn’t a spot on Louis’ tanned body where Harry’s hands hadn’t touched, or where shadows weren’t fluttering lightly and applying just the right amount of pressure. Harry was on top of him all of a sudden, and Louis wanted more, wanted everything he could give, wanted to give him everything, and the world was too big when he could feel other things apart from Harry’s hands. His body was so sensitive it was bordering on being more than he could stand, but his mouth moved with Harry’s and his hips were rocking already, and he could feel Harry’s desire burning hotly like his own; feel it under his hands and running through his brain and he couldn’t seem to pull Harry close enough, but Harry was still holding back, and Louis didn’t like that. Didn’t want him to be afraid.

_Louis…_

“Come on,” Louis said softly, breathlessly. “It’ll be okay, come on. Can you lift your hips up for me? We can try it a different way…make sure you definitely can’t hurt me this time…you’re in control this time, okay? It’s all down to you. No more surprises.”

Harry groaned in protest, like he wanted to say no, like he was still terrified to hurt him again, but he leaned down to kiss Louis and Louis felt the thrill of victory run through him as Harry started to carefully lower himself down. He did his best to line things up as best he could from the bottom, to make things run more smoothly, but there wasn’t much he  _could_ do – like he had said, this time it was all down to Harry.

_Louis…_

“You trust me?”

 _Always_ , Harry said softly.

Their lips moulded together, searing hot like they were being welded together, and then Louis pulled Harry down to him and they set about starting round two.  _Practice makes perfect_ , Louis would remind Harry when they were done.  _Practice makes perfect._


	18. Chapter 18

“So I haven’t been entirely honest with you, I guess,” Louis said as he led Niall through the hallway.

“That sounds ominous,” Niall joked, “you about to declare your undying love for me?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Definitely, babe. I just can’t keep my feelings a secret any more. I can’t control myself around you any more, Niall! I can’t control it!” He held his dramatic pose for a few more seconds, then snorted and straightened up. “Close, but no cigar. On a serious note…I’ve met someone. Someone who I think you should meet.”

Niall looked delighted. “Really? You finally met someone? Lou, that’s brilliant! Christ, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that. Well. You do. Like, forever, right? God, this is excellent, what’s he like?”

“See for yourself,” Louis replied, pushing the living room door open.

His abdomen twisted abruptly with nerves, like someone had grabbed two handfuls of his intestines and started braiding them together. In response, he felt Harry’s anxiety pulsing through him in giant waves of nervousness, and had to fight to push that down as well as his own. It was so important to both of them that they got this right – it was a trial run, of sorts. If Niall took one look at Harry and figured out that he wasn’t human, or Harry messed up and did something which evidently a normal person couldn’t or wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. They could swear him to secrecy and be sure that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Crisis averted. But they so wanted that to not be necessary, partly because Niall would never quite be able to get over his awe, would always have so many questions that he’d want to ask, would constantly brag about being right about Slenderman and become twice as insistent about any other mythical creatures he reckoned were wandering around town, and, Louis’ worst worry, he might be afraid. If he was frightened of Harry, Harry would know, and it would hurt his feelings. He’d probably blame himself, and Louis would have to once again go through the whole rigmarole of having to convince him there was nothing wrong with him and his general existence, and quite frankly, he had no intention of going through all of that again.

Harry was sat on the sofa, and as Niall came in, he treated him to one of his warm, beautiful smiles. It was perfectly natural, but Louis could feel something a little bit wrong in the room, like Harry was trying a bit too hard to make Niall like him. He frowned slightly, trying to make sense of it, but before he could ask Harry what he’d done, Niall was pushing past him with a huge grin of his own, holding his hand out. Harry got to his feet and kept smiling, but as Niall held out his hand and said “Hi, I’m Niall,” his confusion, to Louis at least, was palpable.

You shake it, Louis said, far more quickly than he could have spoken aloud, and he sent a mental picture of what he meant. Silently, he berated himself for forgetting to teach Harry how to shake hands, but it was such an old fashioned thing to do that he hadn’t thought to mention it.

So quick was their transmission of thoughts and emotions these days that the hesitation between Niall holding his hand out and Louis explaining what he was supposed to do went unnoticed; Harry took his hand and shook it, still with a friendly smile on his face, and Niall didn’t realise anything had been amiss. Louis let out a breath. At worst, Niall would have thought Harry was being unfriendly if he hadn’t taken his hand, but they’d managed to recover the situation perfectly.

“I’m Harry,” Harry replied. His voice was smooth and rich like melted chocolate. He spoke quite slowly, but Louis knew that he found it harder to talk aloud when he was stressed, and he was impressed that he’d managed it so clearly. Speed was hardly a concern. “Louis’ told me loads about you.”

Niall tutted. “Ah, if only I could say the same thing. He’s been really secretive about you – I didn’t even know you existed til about five seconds ago.”

Louis had joined Harry and had one hand resting on his back, thumb rubbing comfortingly at his spine to tell him how well he was doing, and Harry smiled fondly as he looked down at his boyfriend. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I wanted him all to myself for a little while.” He kissed Louis, a little longer and deeper than was really appropriate for having company, but Louis didn’t have the heart to tell him off for it.

Swatting him playfully, he broke away and said “Oh, you. You want a drink, Niall?”

“Yeah, sure. Water, please,” Niall said, like Louis knew he would, and Louis vanished into the kitchen.

He’d already prepared Niall a drink, but he stirred it quickly to make sure all traces of the tablet had dissolved. He felt bad for slipping medicine into Niall’s drink without him knowing, but he and Harry had wanted to make this meeting go as smoothly as possible, and obviously they both knew that his presence caused nausea until you were used to it. They weren’t sure if the anti-sickness tablet would do any good, but they hoped so.

When Louis came back with three drinks on a tray (he’d been careful to make sure he and Harry both had Cokes, so as to avoid any unfortunate incidents with drink-swapping), Niall was sprawled in the armchair like he owned it whilst Harry sat politely on the sofa, and they were casually chatting. Louis sat down beside Harry and put an arm around his waist. They both watched Niall take his drink and sip it.

When he made no comment, or any indication at all that he’d noticed his drink had been tampered with, they relaxed.

“So where did you two meet, anyway?” asked Niall, and Louis promptly realised he was an idiot for the second time that day, because of all the obvious questions he could have asked, that was the most likely one to come up. “I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen you before, Harry, and Lou doesn’t go many places without me.”

“At a party,” lied Harry, once again impressing Louis with how normal he sounded.

Niall frowned. “A party? Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Ah, it was, uh, Betsy’s party, mate,” Louis said, naming a girl from university who Niall disliked, and who disliked him back twice as much. “I was surprised she invited me, actually.”

“Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Continue.”

Harry said, “I didn’t know many people. I got a bit drunk, and I couldn’t find anyone I recognised. I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t remember how to get back. It was kind of scary, actually. I’m not really a partier. But then I ran into Louis, and he kind of took me under his wing, I guess.”

“He was in a right state, so I took him home,” added Louis, surprised by the ease with which he carried on Harry’s story, “and looked after him a bit. I didn’t like to leave him on his own, so I slept at his house. We got talking –”

Niall smirked.

“Talking, Niall,” Louis reiterated, “and we got on like a house on fire. Started hanging out. Then we started going out on proper dates, and then all of a sudden we just kind of got together.”

“He saved me. He’s my knight in shining armour,” Harry confided, then blushed. It was a perfect addition to the performance, even if Louis hadn’t known that he was telling the truth about that part.

“Bleugh,” Niall grinned. “Shut up! You two are so cute, it makes me wanna throw up.” He frowned and rubbed his stomach. “Quite literally, actually.”

Harry and Louis exchanged worried looks.

“You’ll be alright in a minute. Anyway, consider this payback for me having to watch you slobber all over Charlotte’s face the other week.”

“You should have told me about Harry sooner, and then we could both have slobbered all over someone’s face. But whatever. And I don’t slobber, actually! Charlotte says I’m a great kisser.”

“Mm, well, I’ll take her word for it. No offence, mate, but I don’t really fancy giving you a quick snog to test it.”

“None taken.” Niall’s skin had turned an extremely unpleasant shade – not green, or white, but a sickly grey colour like a white shirt that’d been washed too many times.

“Go get Niall another drink, babe?” Louis asked; it was an excuse to get Harry out of the room and give Niall’s body a chance to recover as much as it was a chance to try and slip him another tablet.

Harry hurried from the room.

“C’mere,” said Niall softly, and when Louis leaned in, Niall whispered, “he’s cute. And he’s really into you, I can tell. I reckon you’re onto a good one there, Lou.”

“I know,” Louis replied, but he couldn’t help but find something a bit odd about what Niall had said. ‘Cute’? Harry looked like a combination of beautiful old painting, a male model, and all the sexiest actors in the world, and Niall had only called him cute? There was definitely something different about Harry today, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“I’ll be back in a second.”

In the kitchen, Harry was stirring the rapidly dissolving anti-sickness tablet into Niall’s water with a detached look on his face. As he entered, Louis scrutinised him and realised what had been bothering him; Harry looked different. He’d always been hot – there was something almost disturbingly sexy about him, even when he was being naive and cute, but some of that seemed to have gone. His bright green eyes were toned down, less like a forest in the sunshine and more like mint leaves. His skin seemed less radiant, as if some of his unusual paleness had gone, and his collarbones were less defined. The curls that usually fell messily over his eyes were swept neatly back and had lost some of their lustre. Usually bright pink, his lips seemed subdued and less plump. He was still attractive, but in a more unremarkable way. The Harry that Louis was used to would have stood out in a crowd because he was beautiful; the kind of beautiful that made your stomach contract and made you ache to take a second look. Today, Harry was… average. It made Louis’ stomach hurt.

It wasn’t because he was bothered about Harry being less pretty. He didn’t care about that at all. Harry could have been the plainest person Louis had ever seen, or even ugly, and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. After all, he’d seen him without a face, so having one that wasn’t pleasant to look at was nothing compared to that. But to see him looking ordinary…

He didn’t look like himself, and that made Louis uncomfortable. He didn’t know how he could have overlooked it.

“What’ve you done?” he asked quietly.

“What do you think? I toned everything down a bit. After all, the face was made with you in mind. All the features that you find the most attractive were exaggerated to make you like it better – it was all a bit much. There was something obviously off about me. We’re not supposed to be drawing attention to ourselves, remember? I just sort of took the edge off.”

That was as good a description as any. It made Louis think of Harry rubbing himself out and colouring himself in with blunt pencils, and more lightly, so that he was less defined all over. It was a sensible move, but that didn’t make him like it any better.

“There’s no crime against looking hot, you know,” he mumbled, feeling stupid. He reached for Niall’s cup, took the spoon out of Harry’s hand and started stirring faster.

Amused, Harry leaned against the kitchen counter. “You don’t like it, do you?”

“You don’t look like you,” Louis said quietly.

“Are you sure you don’t just miss me looking like a combination of Daniel Sharman and Robert Sheehan?” teased Harry.

Blushing at the mention of two of his celebrity crushes, Louis dug him in the ribs. “No, idiot. You could look like David bloody Cameron and I wouldn’t care.”

“Nah, I don’t think I’ll go for that one, thanks. Might be a bit of an attention-grabber.”

Louis resisted the urge to poke him again. “Shut up! The point I’m trying to make is, I don’t care about the face, it just feels weird to see you look so…normal.”

“That is sort of the point, Lou,” Harry reminded him quietly.

Wearily rubbing his eyes, Louis conceded, “I know.”

Taking the cup and spoon out of his hands and putting them back on the counter, Harry put his hands on Louis’ waist, then slid them down to his hips. He dipped his head and kissed him, and Louis stood on his toes to lessen the distance even more, putting his arms around Harry’s neck. He realised that he had to stretch more than usual and thus discovered that Harry had pared down his height a little too, which displeased him even more. Harry chuckled into his mouth and kissed him a little harder, fingers carding through his hair. His mouth still felt the same, tasted the same, and Louis felt a little better about the whole thing. Sighing, he leaned into Harry’s familiar touch and slipped his own fingers into Harry’s hair, practically massaging his curls like he knew Harry liked.

“Ew, get a room.”

They broke apart to find Niall standing in the doorway, looking a little less sickly and grinning at them.

“We did,” Louis grumbled, “but now you’re in it.” He couldn’t help his grin, though. It was hard to keep a sulky expression around Niall.

“Sorry,” said Harry, and his eyes sparkled with so much merriment that it was clear he wasn’t sorry at all. “Couldn’t keep my hands off him.” He grinned at Louis, who realised with a lurch that while they’d been busy kissing Harry had shifted his appearance back to how it had been before Niall’s arrival. Eyes once again blazing emeralds. An extra inch or so to his height. His hair shiny and deep brown, like almost black coffee with the tiniest drop of milk. Looking playful, he squeezed Louis on the bum, and Louis squawked.

“Ew!” repeated Niall, but he grinned even harder. Looking at Harry, he frowned slightly, like he’d noticed something was different, and he opened his mouth as if to say something.

They both tensed.

Shaking his head, Niall smiled. “Bless. Tone down the PDAs, kiddies. You’ve got company.” Then he turned around and wandered back into the living room.

I love you, said Louis, breathing out in relief.

Harry was pleasantly surprised. I love you too.

Let’s go and entertain him, then. I think we might actually pull this off.

Yeah, as long as he doesn’t come too close. I was hoping I wouldn’t make him sick, but…

Don’t worry; he’ll think nothing of it. Niall’s always getting crappy, undercooked fast food from dodgy market stalls and getting sick, he’ll probably assume it’s something to do with that.

Doesn’t make me feel any better about making your best friend puke at the sight of me, though.

Before Louis could reply, Niall yelled, “Oi, Harry, Louis! What the hell’s takin’ so long? You two better not be having sex against the kitchen unit or something!”

Louis burst out laughing. “Damn, you caught us,” he said as he returned to the living room, shoving Niall’s second drink at him.

Harry sat next to him, looking apprehensive again, and Louis squeezed his knee. It’s gonna be fine, babe.

Mm.

~*~

Louis suggested that they watch a movie, because he didn’t want to push his luck with the whole speaking out loud thing. They had a great deal of their conversations aloud these days, so that Harry would get used to it, or else they swapped around so that Louis spoke with his mind and Harry with his mouth, but Harry still got tired after a while and tended to lapse into speaking mentally again without even realising it sometimes, so Louis didn’t want to put more strain on him than he had to.

They sat in silence – or, as far as Niall was concerned, they did. For the most part, Harry and Louis were quiet too, but they’d exchange the odd word inside their heads. Quirky little comments about the movie. Discussing how Niall seemed to be reacting to Harry’s presence; as far as Harry could tell, he seemed calm. He hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Exchanging a few words every now and then.

At one point, Louis made a comment about the film which Harry found so funny that he spluttered with laughter, having to clap his hands over his mouth to hold it back. Niall gave him a quizzical glance, only to see Harry grinning through his fingers while Louis shook his head at him, trying not to laugh himself.

“Bonkers,” Niall said with amusement, and turned back to the screen.

Careful, Louis warned.

Sorry. But you made me laugh. Harry’s fingers trailed down Louis’ leg.

Louis slapped his hand lightly. Oi! You can’t do that when there are other people in the room.

Why?

Uh, well, let me think – do you have a sudden desire to watch Niall and Charlotte have sex in front of you?

No.

Then what makes you think Niall wants to watch us?

Harry shrugged. Well, porn doesn’t interest me either, but he likes watching that. What’s the difference?

Louis stared at him for a second and then started laughing, completely at a loss as to what to say.

Pausing the TV, Niall looked across them with a bemused expression and asked, “Am I interrupting something? Because I can clear out if you two are in the middle of something. I don’t wanna be a gooseberry.”

“Nah, it’s fine, Niall, Harry just needs to learn how to keep his hands to himself, don’t you, Harry?”

Dipping his head, Harry tried to look contrite.

“Well, who can blame you? Our Lou’s a fine figure of a man, aren’t you?” teased Niall, grabbing Louis’ thigh and planting a stupid, jokey kiss on his cheek.

It was nothing more than a joke, but that didn’t stop the sudden pang of an unfamiliar emotion rattling in Harry’s chest, like his heart had come undone from most of his arteries and started bouncing around his ribs on a bungee. His cheeks, stomach and hands grew hot, and unable to help himself, he glared at Niall, hands bunching into fists. The room had visibly become darker, like someone had turned down the lights – but the lights weren’t switched on. A thick haze covered the room, like shadows spread thinly around. A dark fog. The air tasted bitter and stale. Through it all, Louis could feel the angry feeling pulsing through Harry’s body as he struggled with it, trying to make sense of the new sensation and fighting an urge to yank Louis away from Niall, who was still jokingly patting him on the knee.

Harry, Louis warned.

Since he’d never had an opportunity to be jealous before, Harry wasn’t used to fighting it. Louis knew that he should be praising him for not sending tangible shadows swooping around the room like birds of prey, but he was still concerned by Harry’s lack of complete control over himself. Harry shuddered and tried to pull them back in, and the room lightened ever so slightly, but Louis’ stomach still felt like someone had dropped an enormous rock on it.

Niall clapped a hand over his mouth.

Louis turned his attention to the blond. “You alright, mate?”

“Gonna throw up,” Niall said in a strangled voice, and he ran from the room, making a beeline for the toilet.

He barely made it in time. On his knees, Niall grabbed the toilet bowl and choked disgustingly, whilst Louis helplessly banged him on the back and stood vigil. The smell made his stomach twist even more, but he would have felt bad for walking out when it was really his fault that Niall was ill. For a moment, he wondered whether Harry had caused this new bout of nausea on purpose in his anger, but he instantly dismissed the idea. Harry was emotional, but he wasn’t malicious. Most likely it had been a response to him using his power rather than anything he’d done on purpose. Or maybe he’d been sitting near Niall too long and it had all just accumulated, and all of a sudden he’d felt the full force of the side-effects.

At a new splattering sound, Louis wrinkled his nose and turned away. Harry was standing in the doorway, and their eyes locked.

He looked sad. His eyes were dull and empty-looking, his mouth set in an expressionless line. Around him, the air looked ever so slightly darker than everywhere else, like a pulsing aura. When he looked at Niall, who was throwing up harder than Louis had heard anyone throw up before, he looked even worse. Louis could feel his guilt settling heavily in the pit of his stomach and he couldn’t stand it. It wasn’t Harry’s fault, but he knew that Harry thought so.

Harry.

Harry’s gaze snapped back to his, and they stared at each other. Almost imperceptibly, Louis shook his head.

Harry breathed out. It was a heavy sigh, but once the breath had left him, he looked better. Closing his eyes, he shut the bathroom door and walked away. Louis heard his footsteps fade into nothing and hoped that he hadn’t gone to wallow in misery and self-pity again – it took ages to pull him out of those moods, and Harry’s sad moods left them both tired and miserable.

“What’s up with him?”

Louis hadn’t realised Niall had seen their silent exchange. He was wiping his mouth and looking mildly disgusted, and staring at the door that Harry had just shut.

Shrugging, Louis said, “Sympathy sicker.”

Niall nodded and then leant over the bowl again. “Think he’d probably better steer clear of me for the foreseeable future, then.” He groaned.

“Yeah,” said Louis softly. “I suppose he better had.”

~*~

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Louis was sat on their bed, Harry lying with his head in Louis’ lap while Louis massaged his forehead to try and clear the headache brewing around his temples. The fact that Louis could feel the headache as well wasn’t making it any easier, as he had this stupid urge to rub his own head too, even though the pain was all coming from Harry. But it did mean that when his fingers smoothed over just the right spot, he didn’t have to rely on Harry to let him know what was helping and what wasn’t, so they had been silent for a good half an hour.

How is it not my fault? I got jealous and suddenly he started pretty much vomiting up his internal organs, and yet it isn’t my fault? You do talk some shit sometimes, Louis. Irritably, Harry twitched his head away from Louis’ fingers. And stop fussing over me!

“Don’t be stupid. You know it was helping. And if you think I’m gonna sit here with a pounding headache because you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, you can think again, matey. Neither of us can take painkillers for this, so lie back down, idiot.”

Harry huffed crossly for a while, but eventually he rested his head back on Louis’ thighs and closed his eyes as Louis went back to stroking his forehead. Louis could feel his relief as he relaxed into the touch. You could just not talk, he grumbled, but Louis knew there was no nastiness behind it.

“Yeah, but that’s not really me, is it? I think the day I do stop talking is the day you should start getting seriously worried.”

Mm.

They sank back into comfortable silence for another ten minutes, but with the little ball of tension and guilt in Harry’s belly neither of them could physically get comfortable. Louis sighed.

“Please can we talk about this? You know it’s going to keep making both of us miserable until we do.”

What’s there to talk about? How are you supposed to have a future with me, Harry said bitterly, when all of your friends start spontaneously vomiting at the sight of me?

In spite of himself, Louis’ lips twitched; he had the mental image of a street full of people all doubling over and throwing up in unison as he and Harry walked down the street. It shouldn’t have been funny, but for some reason it was, and he laughed quietly. Harry rolled his eyes and nudged him disapprovingly, but Louis could feel his reluctant amusement loosening the knot in his stomach.

“You’re exaggerating a little, you know. Niall had been here for a good hour and a half before he started throwing up.”

Yes, but he started feeling sick after the first five minutes, and we don’t know how much of his reaction was delayed by the tablets. We can’t go around drugging everyone who meets me.

“Niall will get used to you. He liked you, anyway, and most importantly, he believed us! He thought you were human, babe, isn’t that great? That’s better than great. That’s incredible. You were so believable I almost believed you myself. I’m so proud of you.” He leaned over Harry and kissed him, which was a little weird considering that Harry was upside-down, but it still worked.

Harry closed his eyes and his lips twitched into a little smile. I can see up your nose.

“Well stop looking! Don’t be gross.”

Sorry.

“Yeah, you will be. And don’t change the subject! Things went far better than I expected them to, actually.”

You expected me to mess up, you mean.

“No! No I did not, smart-arse. But Niall’s a paranoid bastard, and he knows more useless trivia about monsters and things than anyone else I know. I was expecting him to notice something different about you. Cos I’m used to you now, so I don’t spot things that make you different to other people – they’re normal to me. But he didn’t pick up on anything.”

There was that shady moment where I shifted my appearance back to how you like it. He knew something was different, then. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew it was there.

“Oh, come on, now you’re just looking for something to complain about. So he thought he saw something different about you, so what? Babe, he kissed me –”

Harry’s nostrils flared. Don’t remind me.

“And it – it upset you, like it really got to you. But you didn’t lose it at all, you kept under control. Mostly. I remember a time when there would have been shadows flying around the room like crazy when you got emotional like that.”

I…didn’t like it, when he kissed you. I know he’s your friend. But only I get to kiss my Louis. My Louis. He gripped Louis’ thigh. I didn’t mean to scare you.

“You didn’t –”

Harry presented him with the memory of the horrible pressure on his stomach, all the air knocked out of him, and Louis pulled his hair to make him stop. Scowling, Harry bit his thigh and Louis twitched in a mixture of pain and pleasure before he carried on massaging Harry’s forehead to placate him.

“Yeah, all right. Maybe it was a bit unnerving. Look, forget that. I’m proud of you, okay? I. Am. Proud. Of. You.” He punctuated each word with a rub of Harry’s scalp, which, despite Harry’s best intentions, made him wriggle with pleasure and make a soft noise like a purring kitten. “You did well.”

You aren’t just saying that? Harry asked pathetically. To make me feel better?

“Wouldn’t you know if I was?”

Silence.

Harry whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut, his hands flying to his head. Hurts, he mumbled.

“You sure you don’t want to try some more Ibuprofen?”

Ugh, no. Doesn’t taste right and it hasn’t made a difference anyway. Your medicines don’t work on me, you know they don’t.

“You shouldn’t let yourself get so wound up. Stress isn’t good for anyone…I can get you a cool cloth to put on your head if you want, see if that helps?”

That sounds nice, but I don’t want you to get up.

“I can be quick?”

He took Harry’s groan as a yes.

Sliding a pillow underneath his head, Louis hurried into the bathroom and dampened his facecloth, wringing it out so that it wouldn’t drip. He stopped for a moment to get a drink, slurping straight from the tap, and then made a quick detour for the kitchen to go and get some chocolate chip cookies. He guessed they might be helpful – completely for medicinal purposes, obviously.

When he got back into the bedroom, Harry’s mouth was hanging open and he was snoring gently, his limbs spread-eagled all over the bed like he’d fallen onto it from a great height. Slightly sweaty, his curls stuck to his forehead. Louis didn’t know how on earth he’d fallen asleep so quickly, but it was a blessing, he supposed – he couldn’t feel much pain from him anymore, just mild discomfort muffled by his unconsciousness.

Laying the cloth over Harry’s hot forehead, Louis smoothed his hair and put the jar of cookies on the floor before examining Harry’s position to try and figure out where he could lie down. Eventually, with a fond shake of his head, he lifted one of Harry’s long arms, lay down beside him and placed the arm back down between them. He snuggled up to Harry’s sleeping form and closed his own eyes, knowing that Harry’s tiredness would soon pull him in and it wouldn’t take him long to be asleep himself.

Harry rolled over and pulled Louis against his chest, still deeply asleep and with the cloth stuck to his head.

Biting his lip to hold his smile back, Louis pressed his face against Harry’s chest and thought, I love you, you adorable fool.

Harry answered with a snore, and Louis grinned even harder as he curled up to him and closed his eyes.


	19. Chapter 19

It all began with a text from Niall.

Louis had been content with their little world of two, lost in each other, in a whirl of telepathy and quick, laughing kisses, and fucking and making love and everything in between. He taught Harry how to use his body, how to make it feel good, how to make someone else feel good. They practiced that a lot. They played games and watched TV and listened to music and did most of their shopping online and sometimes they’d sit on the front step in the evenings and look up at the black sky and the stars like faraway diamonds, and Louis would rest his head on Harry’s shoulder and think that he was the happiest man alive. But sometimes, he would begin to feel like he missed certain things about the time before Harry – namely the university party scene. He missed the fuzzy hype of being drunk, the atmosphere buzzing and the air filled with the smells of sweat and tangy alcohol and the heavy, thick smell of weed. He missed the occasional drag he would take on someone else’s spliff for the tiniest giggly buzz. He missed dancing to songs he ordinarily couldn’t stand, but, when they were so loud that the house they’d taken over was vibrating with the beat, seemed to become far more musical. He missed people whose faces blurred with drunkenness and whose hands reached out for him as if to pull him deeper into the fog. Back when he’d always felt so empty and incomplete, a little anaesthesia had been welcome – he’d enjoyed the release of sinking into numbness, of everything being a little less real.

Despite no longer seeking that escape route, Louis found that he missed the party scene anyway. He’d never quite felt like part of anything, but university parties had been the closest he’d ever come to it. So when his phone vibrated and he opened a text from Niall inviting him to a holiday soiree, his heart gave a little excited jolt.

**Hi Lou u coming t this party tonight or what?? Gonna be fun. Everyone missing u at the uni dos.**

His heart started to thud and, just for a moment, he let himself consider it. Bleary memories surfaced of wildly dancing with Niall, drink spilling stickily down his arm as it slopped out of the plastic cup he was clenching. It made his chest ache to remember those times; he hadn’t realised that he’d missed them, but he thought of Niall’s thick, heavy laugh in his ear as they clung to each other, breath smelling sourly of vodka and his eyes half closed, and he felt a great pang of nostalgia.

Closing his eyes, he tried to visualise Harry in that position. Dazed eyes, hair flopping in his eyes, plump lips bright pink, plastic cup in his hand. He’d look so beautiful, so loose and wild and carefree, finally able to let go…and that was when Louis had a rather brilliant idea.

“Babe?”

“Yeah?” Harry called. He was in the kitchen, making pancakes for their tea. Up until a few days ago, Louis had always hovered agitatedly in the background when Harry cooked, terrified that he’d burn himself or a knife would slip or some other horrible mishap – but then Harry pointed out that Louis was more prone to burning himself during their cooking experiments than he was, and Louis had conceded defeat. Harry was a good cook, anyway.

“You at a critical point in there, or will the pancakes be okay for a second? I wanna talk to you.”

Poking his head around the kitchen door, Harry said cheerfully, “They’ll probably survive, but if not, it’s yours that I’m making first, so you can eat the ashes if it burns. What’s up? Reminiscing about your old glory days?” he teased.

“Um, less of the old, thank you! That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.” Louis advanced on him and held out his phone, Niall’s text on display. “You wanna go to a party?”

Startled, Harry stared at him for a second, and then he gave a little laugh.

“Yeah, funny.”

“…I’m not joking?”

With a snort, Harry reminded him, “Louis, I’m a sodding great shadow-monster freak who makes people throw up when they see me and destroys things with shadows when I’m stressed. You can’t be serious. You want to take  _me_ to a party? Are you out of your mind? It’s a cute idea, and I’d love to go with you, but if you want to be the party animal, you’re gonna have to go on your own.” His smile was a sad little curve of his lips. He turned to head back into the kitchen.

Snagging his wrist, Louis tugged him smartly back. “Oi, Mister. Hear me out.”

Raising his eyebrows, Harry said obediently, “Yes Louis,” but he sounded slightly mocking. Louis bopped him on the nose in mock indignation.

“Don’t  _sass_  me, Harold. If you used your brilliant brain like I’d use mine, you’d realise that a party is an _ideal_ setting in which to introduce such an exceptional individual as your good self.” When he was drunk, Louis tended to be wordy – he’d use long, convoluted sentences and trip over himself, and emphasize random words for effect. Thinking about being drunk had a similar sort of effect. “Think, Harry, think! The main problems with introducing you to a bunch of strangers are that your presence causes nausea, and that you have abilities which could cause alarm if anyone sees them, right?”

“Right,” Harry said slowly.

“Right, and where do you find a bunch of nauseous teenagers who can’t trust the evidence of their own eyes?”

Harry waited cautiously, like he was expecting a punch line to a joke that he was going to be the butt of.

“A  _party_ , Harry,” Louis said patiently, when it became clear that Harry wasn’t going to give him an answer. “Think about it, right? They’ll all be drunk as shit, so half of them will be throwing up without your intervention – therefore, when you start making them sick, they’ll blame it on the alcohol, yeah?”

“…Yeah.”

Louis said encouragingly, “ _Yeah._ And a great deal of them will be high as a kite, because everyone smokes weed at these parties, and even the ones who aren’t directly smoking it will still be breathing it in, so  _everyone_ will be high. So if anything happens, we just lay low for a bit and then the next day, say to whoever saw you ‘how fucking high were you last night’? to reinforce what they already think; that it was all a hallucination caused by the drugs. And boom. Rule one – nobody listens to a stoner. They don’t make convincing witnesses.” He flashed a slightly manic grin.

Harry’s answering smile was a little more wary. Louis’ hand slid down his back and rubbed comforting circles on the base of his spine to calm him.

“It’s daunting, I know. Your first party in itself would be scary, without all this extra stuff to worry about on top of that. But babe, we have to take the first step, you know? If we just keep sitting here surrounded by all those ‘what-if’s, we’ll never get anywhere. Will you come? For me?” Louis raised his eyebrows and pouted, and fluttered his eyelashes. It was a look that could persuade even the most hardened of hearts, and Harry’s was as soft as butter.

Harry pouted. “You always get round me, Lou. I need to work on toughening up.”

“We’ll work on whatever you like, darling, but I think we need to start with your outfit.” Louis looked him up and down.

“…What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Harry asked in an injured tone.

Louis raised his eyebrows. Harry was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the first three buttons undone, a pinafore-type navy apron, and black trousers. His hair was untidy. He looked like he’d just come home from a formal ball of some kind, taken off his bow tie, raked a hand through his hair and began cooking a meal. Or possibly a waiter at a fancy restaurant who’d decided to play at being a chef. 

“You look good,” Louis said truthfully.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Wrong kind of good. You look like you’ve just come from a garden party at Buckingham Palace.”

Harry pouted.

“Don’t worry. I can fix this.” Louis looked him up and down, then thoughtfully ran a hand through his hair, raking it into even further disarray. “Come with me. I’m going to make you look  _wrecked_.”

“Uh. Is that a good thing?”

“Oh yes,” Louis said wickedly. “It most  _definitely_ is.”

~*~

Louis stepped back and, with another final squirt of hairspray, took a moment to appraise his handiwork. Harry was wearing a navy shirt with little white hearts on it, and jeans so tight that they looked like they might be cutting off the circulation to his waist, with strategically placed rips on the knees. Louis had run his fingers (and a comb) through his hair until it was an elaborate mess that would have been possibly to perfectly recreate; it looked floppy but miraculously was staying in place. Harry’s cheeks were pink and so were his lips, and he looked bright-eyed and excited. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed after an afternoon of excellent sex, and Louis was pretty damn sure that everyone who clapped eyes on him would have wished that they had been the ones partaking in aforementioned excellent sex with him. Louis looked him up and down.

“How do I look?” asked Harry anxiously.

“Hmm.” Stepping forwards, Louis tilted his head, lips curving into a satisfied smirk. “Good.” He leaned forward and rested his lips on Harry’s collarbone. “Enough.” He kissed it, leaving his lips resting gently against his soft skin. “To eat.” He gently bit Harry’s collarbone, and he felt a wave of pleasure rush through Harry at the sensation.

 _Is that an offer?_ Harry asked hoarsely. Even his thoughts sounded wrecked, ragged around the edges.

 _Hmm,_ Louis thought, teasingly licking his lips. He felt Harry swallow, felt a shudder run through him. _Maybe later. If you’re very good._

_I’ll be good. Can I be good later, and you – eat me now?_

_Sorry, can’t guarantee that you’ll be good, can I? If I did that now, what’s to stop you being very, very_ bad  _later? No, patience is a virtue, babe. Don’t worry. I’ll do it later, promise. We’ve got a party to go to first._ Reaching for his denim jacket, Louis shrugged it on and ran a hand lightly over his quiffed hair.  _Very Danny Zuko,_ he congratulated himself.

Harry sighed heavily. “Fine, but you owe me.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ll make it up to you,” Louis promised, grabbing his hand. He hesitated. “If I give you an address, babe, can you zap us to where this party’s at? I really can’t afford to splash out on a taxi.”

“What am I, your pumpkin carriage?” grumbled Harry good-naturedly. “Cinderella, you  _shall_ go to the ball!” But he squeezed Louis’ hand. “You’ll have to show me rather than tell me. I still haven’t gotten the hang of postcodes. Where to, milady? Your carriage awaits.”

Louis closed his eyes and they both saw an image of a large mock-Victorian house with lots of empty beer cans sprinkled across the garden like strange aluminium flowers. Student accommodation – hardly glamorous, but the people living in it were pretty damn lucky, because the landlord pretty much didn’t give a shit what they got up to in there as long as they didn’t have any pets. It was better than his own flat – last time his landlord had been in, he’d nosily inspected every inch of the flat and warned Louis that if he found a single inch of it which had a scratch, dent or scuff-mark that hadn’t been there before he moved in, then he’d be paying some serious compensation. It wasn’t as if it was a particularly amazing flat, either. It was small. And come to think of it, he still needed to paint over all those symbols on the living room wall again, because a single coat of the white paint he’d hastily covered them up with hadn’t been enough, and there was still a vague outline on the wall.

“Need you to focus on the house and not your landlord or the living room, Lou, or we’ll end up either on our sofa or in his bedroom,” Harry said gently.

“Right, sorry.”

He took a deep breath and focused on his memories of the house; there had been quite a few parties that he’d been to there, but he’d been drunk or high or heading that way every time he’d been round, so his memories were all rather blurry. He saw peeling white paint, black wooden beams. Hazy purple curtains made of a strange net fabric with little spangled mirror sequins sewn on to it, clearly home-made. A doormat which had once said ‘welcome’ and now bore the legend ‘ ~~wel~~ come’ and some white paint drips – mature, but it always made him smirk anyway. Christmas lights still gaudily draped over the roof that they hadn’t bothered to take down, and turned on whenever they had a party. Some of them didn’t work properly, and others gave a dim glow, but when you were high, it looked just as impressive either way. The doorknocker was shaped like a lion, and someone liked to stick different kinds of moustaches to it every week, clumsily cut out of paper – sometimes a handlebar moustache, other times a moustache-and-goatee combo, sometimes a long, drooping fringe. The more he visualised it, the better he could see it all, hear it all, smell it all. Heavy bass music making the whole street seem to shake; blazing orange streetlights illuminating the sky like crude stars only a few metres above their heads; the thick smell of cigarettes and that burning-sugar fug of weed in the air - 

He felt a breeze in his hair and opened one eye cautiously. They were stood in front of the house he’d been picturing so vividly, hand in hand, and Harry was staring open-mouthed at the scene before him. Sitting on the doorstep, propped up against the doorframe, was a girl with a green glass bottle in her hand. She raised it to them in a crazy, drunken salute, and Louis waved jovially at her before tugging on Harry’s hand.

They ambled towards the house, Harry looking all around him in awe. In the garden, a black girl and a ginger boy lay side by side, holding hands and giggling at the sky. They were lying in a patch of weeds, and dandelions framed the girl’s head like a halo. As they approached the doorstep, someone stuck their head out of an upstairs window and howled drunkenly at the moon. This was already looking to be one of Louis’ wilder parties, and he felt a distant thud of excitement that timed itself with the bass of the music. Stepping carefully over the girl with the bottle, they entered the house, and Louis spared a glance for the knocker on the open door as they did so. Someone had fashioned a Hitler-type moustache from fun fur and stuck it to the lion’s upper lip. More sophisticated university humour.

He pulled Harry through the living room, where a group of at least seven students were crammed together on a sofa, laughing hysterically. The TV was on, but he couldn’t fathom how any of them could hear it, with a stereo in the corner blasting loud, shitty music at an ear-splitting volume. Several of them had large wine-glasses in their hands, filled with something undoubtedly more intoxicating than wine. A few of them had spliff, too. Louis hurriedly steered Harry away from them; he didn’t want to risk getting Harry high, didn’t know how he would react to it.

They headed through the open door into a small storage room of some kind, with shelves full of shoes lining the walls. There were plenty of empty spaces, but those who’d taken their shoes off had left them in a pile on the floor. Harry bent to obediently start unlacing his converse, but Louis grabbed his wrist.

“Best not,” he said gently. God alone only knows what they could end up stepping in.

Another couple were passionately making out against a wall, lips mashed together, hands roaming anywhere and everywhere. One of them was wearing a skirt, but the other was wearing jeans and a plain white shirt, with short blond hair, and he couldn’t tell from their (mostly obscured) face whether they were a girl or a boy. He didn’t care either way. Harry stared at them, open-mouthed, as he and Louis walked past.

Next, they found the kitchen. The kitchen table was laden with bottles, plastic cups and shot-glasses, and someone had left some sausages rolls and a few cheese and pineapple sticks as well, like this was some cute little primary school birthday party. Louis nicked a cheese and pineapple stick, and then regretted it almost as soon as he’d swallowed it. The pineapple left a nasty aftertaste in his mouth. Grimacing, he poured himself a vodka to wash it down with, and downed it in one; it was hardly a large amount, considering how much everyone else was knocking back, but Harry looked extremely impressed. 

“Want some?” offered Louis.

Harry nodded nervously. Instead of letting him drink it by himself, Louis took another mouthful and then kissed him, letting Harry take it out of his mouth. He’d had this vague idea that it might be hot, but vague memories of what the alcohol tasted like were not enough preparation for Harry, and he jerked away to spit it into the sink.

“It tastes like paint-stripper!” he declared in disgust.

Louis laughed and hastily tried to turn it into a cough. “Yes. Well. Sorry. Maybe not the best thing for you to try as your first taste of alcohol…maybe we should have tried to find you a WKD instead…” he looked around. “Hmm. Maybe not. I think this lot reckon they’re a bit too hardcore for WKD…”

“Bitch-piss!” someone snorted behind him. “I’ve been drinking that since I popped out me mum. Bloody bitch-piss. How old do you think we are, fourteen?”

“Yeah, well, that’s cos you’re Irish, innit?” Louis teased, “raging alcoholics, the lot of you.” Turning round, he gave Niall a one-armed hug. “Long time, no see, Nialler. Forgot how ugly you were.”

Niall stuck out his tongue. “Getting no complaints from anyone else, am I, babe?” They separated, and he reached for Charlotte and tucked her into his side.

“He’s h- _hot_ ,” Charlotte said thickly. Louis had a feeling that she was playing drunk; she’d got the tone of voice spot on, but her eyes were too focused for her to be as wasted as she sounded. She had lots of very thick, dark eye make-up on, a smoky eye look, with lots of purple, and thick fake eyelashes like spiders legs. Her lipstick was, in contrast, a few shades brighter crimson than her hair, and she was wearing  _dungarees_ , for god’s sake. Denim dungarees, a black and white striped jumper, tights, and creepers. He couldn’t decide which was worse: her outfit, or the fact that she somehow still looked okay in it.

“Harry!” Niall crowed, spotting the partner who stood just a little behind Louis, eyes cast shyly downwards. “Give us a hug, big man, come on!”

Surprised but pleased, Harry stepped forwards and gave him a tentative hug. Niall thumped him cheerfully on the back, and Louis crossed his fingers and prayed that Niall wouldn’t suddenly throw up over Harry’s shoulder. Harry gave a chuckle in response to that, and he looked amusedly at Louis as he stepped away from Niall, lightly treading on his boyfriend’s toe.

“Nice to see you, to see you,  _nice_!” said Niall inexplicably, doing a little Bruce Forsyth-type dance move. “Come on, chums, let’s go sit in the garden. They have a  _fantastic_ swing-set out here, it’s great.”

Niall, Louis decided,  _wasn’t_ playing drunk.

The four of them headed out through the open back door, skirting around all the people randomly lying around on towels on the grass, as if sunbathing in the moonlight. The swing-set was still empty, and they all sat down, Charlotte on the far right, Harry on the far left, and Niall and Louis sandwiched in between them. Niall had a few cans of something in his rucksack and they sipped in companionable silence.

Someone was throwing up in a bush on the other side of the garden. Several people were sat cross-legged in a circle like little kids, playing some kind of drinking game with shots. One of the windows on the top floor was open and it sounded like someone was having sex. Bursts of manic laughter drifted from the open kitchen door. Harry took it all in with wide-eyed excitement, looking around in awe and trying to take in everything that there was to notice. He was intrigued, but he didn’t seem to be scared, or anxious, or agitated, or any of the other things that Louis had anticipated. In fact, Louis was bursting with pride for how well he was coping with all of this. It was all going well, far better than he’d imagined – the only person who was showing any signs of nausea was choking their guts up into the begonias with a bottle of vodka clutched in one hand, no sign that it was anything to do with Harry.

In fact, it was all going so well that Louis decided to test the waters a little.

He yawned, stretched, rumpled his hair. Then he sat up a little, placing his can on the grass. “I’ll be right back. Just gonna pop to the loo.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. Niall made a vague noise of assent, and Charlotte ignored him, forcing Louis to conclude that he really,  _really_ didn’t like her.

 _I won’t be far away, babe,_ he promised,  _I just want to see how you get on without me for a few minutes, okay? I’ll just have a quick walk round the house and be back. Call me if you need me._ He tapped his temple and then darted forwards to kiss Harry on the cheek.

“Yuck, get a room,” complained Niall with a wrinkle of his nose.

“Got a flat,” Louis replied, giving him the finger, and he headed off into the house.

He wandered aimlessly around for a few minutes, cheerfully sticking his nose through doorways to see what was going on inside. In this way, he stumbled upon several couples in clinches in various rooms, saw someone throwing up in the downstairs bathroom and someone making heaving piles of bubbles in the kitchen sink with fairy liquid. People-watching was something which Louis greatly enjoyed doing, and there was something especially fascinating about people when they were drunk and not fully in control of themselves. There was definitely something funnier about them. He received an enormous hug from a – usually – quiet girl in his maths class who seemed to have gained the gift of the gab all of a sudden, and babbled excited nonsense in his ear whilst she clung to his shirt with both hands. A guy with dreadlocks was perched on a windowsill smoking a pipe – an actual pipe. The sofa in the living room had been commandeered by a group of girls absorbed in their phones, scrolling and tapping or just staring at the screens, apparently oblivious to the world around them. Louis knew all about that feeling; he experienced it every time he delved into Harry’s mind to speak to him when they were apart, and he knew how comforting that detachment from the world could be.

Eventually he found a little group of strangers to mingle with, winning them over with a charming smile and a bite of his lower lip. Louis was a flirt, what could he say? Nobody else seemed to be complaining. He sat with them, immersed himself in their heavy, slurred tones and nodded in all the right places, all the while mentally keeping tabs on Harry, to make sure that he was all right.

Harry was heroically attempting to make conversation with Niall and Charlotte. Niall was cooperative, but so drunk that trying to get a coherent sentence out of him was a near impossibility. Charlotte was far more sober, but she was also extremely unpleasant, and despite Harry’s best efforts to talk to her, would grace him with no more than a shrug or a non-committal grumble in response. Louis could feel tension rising in Harry and he took a minute to try to soothe him, assuring him that it wasn’t his fault, and that Charlotte was just vile company.

“What TV shows do you like?” Harry persisted.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Dunno.” She started drinking again, and Harry sighed and slumped back in his seat, giving up at last.

Shaking his head at her attitude problem and wondering why Niall put up with her, Louis drew himself back to the conversation he was supposed to be listening to and realised that a boy was giving him The Look. So, of course, Louis looked appraisingly back. Not in a ‘ooh, come here, you’, sort of way; more of a ‘you’re checking me out so it would be rude not to check you out right back’ sort of way. The guy was quite short, a few inches shorter than Louis, at least, and he had a Baby-era Justin Bieber haircut, dimples, and very pink lips. As Louis looked at them, an even pinker tongue flicked out to wet them, and the Justin lookalike smirked as he licked his lips very deliberately at Louis.

This was rapidly heading towards dangerous territory – Louis could feel Harry twitching in response, not because he was upset about Louis giving the guy the once-over, but because he was distinctly unimpressed by all the alluring lip-licking that was going on. Had he been by Harry’s side, he would have put a hand on his leg or squeezed his hand or done something to reassure him. From his current position, the best he could do was to instantly find flaws with the boy who was currently giving him the most obvious Look that Louis had ever seen. He had a slightly strangely-shaped nose, and his pink lips were thin. He felt Harry’s relief at these observations, and at Louis’ assurances that the guy wasn’t his type, and they both relaxed significantly. In fact, as he politely excused himself from the group, Louis was feeling satisfied that he had successfully defused the situation when he felt someone grab his wrist, and sweaty fingers encircled his arm with a firm grip.

“Hi,” said the guy, with a smile that was just short of being sleazy and overconfident – there was something a little uncertain about him. “I’m Gareth.”

“Okay,” Louis said slowly, like he had just said something extremely strange and he wasn’t sure how he was meant to respond. He turned and continued trying to head back towards the garden, but Gareth was still holding his wrist. Pausing, Louis gave a little tug.

“You going my way?” Gareth asked, with one of those little lopsided smiles that Louis was sure he’d copied from Edward Cullen. It didn’t make him look cute, it made him look wonky.

“Since I appear to be walking away from you, it would seem not. Could you let go of my arm, please?”

Gareth released him, and Louis started to walk away from him, struggling to stay detached – if he got annoyed or upset, Harry would start to get more agitated, and Louis could already feel that he was getting steadily angrier. But as Louis strode hurriedly away, the boy hurried after him, matching his pace, and since he had significantly longer legs, it was easy for him to keep up. Louis made a small sound of annoyance and tried to ignore him, but Gareth wasn’t going to let him get away that easily.

Trotting after him, he persisted, “I don’t like my name very much, can I have yours?”

“You got the line wrong; I believe it’s something about losing a phone number. And before you ask, no, you can’t have that either. Would you please stop following me?”

“What’s wrong with you? I’m just trying to be friendly.” After a pause, Gareth gave a short laugh. “Oh, right. You still cowering in the closet? With the greatest respect, sweetheart, you’re wasting your time. I spotted you a mile away. You’ve practically got ‘twink’ tattooed across your forehead.”

“With the greatest respect,  _sweetheart_ , fuck off,” Louis said coolly, swiping another drink from a table as he passed. He was beginning to get really annoyed by this kid. They stopped by the kitchen door, blocked by a group of drunken, tittering girls, and Louis tapped his foot impatiently, debating whether or not to shove his way through them just to get away.

“Oh, come on. Have a heart, babes, I’m  _gagging_ for it. Haven’t had a good shag in months.”

Now that Gareth had completely abandoned all attempts at both politeness and subtlety, Louis felt an even greater urge to sock him in the teeth. “I’m spoken for,” he snapped, craning his neck to peer over the girls.

“So? So am I, technically. I said I hadn’t had a  _good_ shag in months, not that I hadn’t had one at all. It’s a party, lighten up.”

“Look, I said  _no_.”

Gareth opened his mouth, presumably to deliver some more sleaze – but as he did so, the temperature of the room dropped considerably. Louis watched goose bumps rise on Gareth’s tanned arms, saw the heavy breath of the girls in front of them turning to mist. Frowning, Gareth rubbed his stomach like it was hurting him, and Louis was just starting to feel a knot of nervous comprehension forming in his own stomach when a long-fingered hand landed on Gareth’s bare shoulder. He had the sleeves cut off his shirt, and the contrast of Harry’s pale fingers against his bronze, chemically tanned skin was almost frightening.

“Um, do you mind not touching me?”

That was a bit rich, considering that he’d had his hands on Louis only half a minute or so ago.

“Believe me, I take no pleasure whatsoever in touching you.” Harry’s tone was a little shaky. In fact, he looked a little shaky all over, like he was struggling to hold himself together; there was something distinctly unsubstantial about him. Unconsciously, he’d altered his body a little – his biceps looked bigger, he was at least an inch taller than usual, with broader shoulders and narrower eyes, so that he looked almost intimidating. Louis couldn’t be afraid of him, but he couldn’t blame someone else for being nervous. “And neither does Louis.”

“Louis, huh? Hmm. Well, mate, I’m sure  _Louis_ can decide that for himself, now, can’t he?” He shook his shoulder to dislodge him. Harry didn’t let go. His grip was tightening, so that Gareth’s shoulder was beginning to turn pale underneath his fingers. The room had become considerably darker, and Louis could see shadows flickering in his peripheral vision.

_Harry, calm down._

“Mine,” Harry said in a low voice, staring straight at Gareth. His fingers flexed.

Gareth looked at him like he’d started speaking gibberish. “Oh, god, are you one of  _those_?” He’d gone a sickly grey colour underneath his fake tan, and his hand still rested on his stomach in discomfort.

“It’s okay,” Louis said quickly, rushing to Harry’s side and trying to gently prise him off. “He’s not…not very well, are you, Harry? Come on. Harry. Let go.”

“Mine,” Harry repeated. All of sudden, he sounded close to tears, his eyes glistening, and he seemed to have shrunken in on himself, deflating back to his ordinary proportions, looking helpless and miserable.

 _Yours,_ Louis promised,  _always. Pay no attention to this prick. Come on, Harry, let him go._

_My Louis.._

_Yeah, your Louis. All yours. It’s all right._

Harry took a deep, steadying breath, pressing his lips together. Then he dropped his hand from Gareth’s shoulder and grabbed Louis’ hand instead.

 _That’s it,_ coaxed Louis,  _good boy._ Harry was drunker than he’d realised; he hadn’t thought to limit him, but from the way his voice was wavering and the fog in his head, and the turmoil of his emotions, Louis could tell how far gone he was. He rubbed comforting circles down Harry’s back to calm him down. Tugging on his hand, he began to gently draw him away from Gareth, who was barely paying attention to them now, rubbing his stomach with both hands. The girls by the door were all looking a bit nauseous as well, come to think of it. Louis decided it would be wise to get Harry out of there as quickly as possible, away from Sleazy Gareth and his annoying demeanour.

They began to walk out, Louis gently pushing the group of girls apart so that they could make a pathway through them. He tried to make sure that none of them touched Harry as he shepherded Harry between them; he had a vague idea that touching him would make the effect he had on people worse, and several of the girls were already looking ill. It was hard to tell whether they were just drunk, or whether it was an effect he was having. Louis didn’t really want to wait to find out.

The two of them had just reached the door, and they were about to leave when, at the last minute, Harry turned around and gave one last, dirty look at Gareth, who was looking at Louis with disappointment. Wrinkling his nose, Harry flicked his fingers dismissively in the boy’s direction, like he was telling him to shoo.

The effect was instantaneous: Gareth’s eyes popped and, with a loud groan, he doubled over and vomited on the floor. A great deal of it splashed onto his shoes. The girls by the door all squealed in disgust, backing away with horrified looks on their faces.

 _Harry_! Louis scolded, but he couldn’t help but laugh.

Leaning against him, giving a great deal of his weight to Louis, Harry let his head loll onto his boyfriend’s shoulder and gave him a weary, innocent look.  _What?_

Shaking his head with amusement, Louis steered him through the doorway. Best get him home, clear both of their heads. They were starting to act a bit reckless.

 [ **Previous**](http://curly-and-boobear-stylinson.tumblr.com/post/66718179882/of-monsters-and-men-larry-stylinson)


	20. Chapter 20

When they entered the garden, Charlotte was vomiting into a bush while Niall held her hair back with a glazed expression. It was the same bush that the other guy had been throwing up in before – Louis immediately dubbed it the ‘puking bush’. Poor bush.

Strangely, Louis found Charlotte a lot more likeable this way – perhaps it was because she seemed more vulnerable, more _human._ Whereas her every move was usually precisely calculated, almost mechanical, with goodness knows how many complex motives behind them, this was helpless. Usually, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a nasty plot brewing behind those brown eyes and that ditzy giggle; that she had a reason for being so poisonous towards him and Harry, and so nice to Niall. That she was manipulating his friend for her own gain. Louis wasn’t sure what he thought she wanted to gain from her relationship with Niall, but he’d always had the unpleasant feeling that she was going out with him for a reason other than merely wanting to be with him.

Of course, it could have been something to do with the fact that she wasn’t talking.

So he did feel oddly reassured, watching her vomit her guts up into the begonias, like he’d finally glimpsed something real about her – but he still cringed as they walked over, and took Harry’s hand to comfort him. They both knew what was the likeliest cause of her illness. Niall rubbed her back distractedly.

 

“I know, babe, it’s okay, bring it all up.” He squinted at Harry. “Hey, you took off in a hurry. Where’d you go?”

Harry hesitated.

Niall smirked. “Oh, of course. Horny bastards.” Turning back to Charlotte, he murmured some comforting drunken nonsense in her ear.

Louis made an amused sound, and Harry blushed, looking like he wanted to contradict the blond. His reaction was perfect. Louis rubbed his back to wordlessly communicate that he’d done well, and he could tell that Harry was pleased. They tried to tune out the sounds of Charlotte grunting and spitting beside them; Harry had his eyes glued to Niall, like he couldn’t stand to look at the redhead. Louis wasn’t sure whether that was because he felt guilty, or if the lie they’d told Niall a while ago had some small grain of truth in it, and he really was a sympathy-sicker. To comfort him, Louis held him a little tighter. Harry was still a little on edge from the confrontation in the kitchen, but as Louis leaned into his side, he relaxed considerably.

“We’re gonna take off,” Louis said.

Niall frowned. “Already? You only just got here!”

Louis shrugged. “Sorry, mate. Harry doesn’t hold his alcohol well. Makes him all sleepy, dun’it, babe?” He gave Harry an encouraging squeeze.

Nodding, Harry gave an innocent little yawn that was so perfectly timed, Louis could have kissed him.

Shaking his head, Niall mumbled something crass about people with terrible stamina and then gave them an enormous grin. “Oh well. Guess we’ll see you on Monday then, Louis.”

“Oh, what are we doing on Monday?”

Niall raised his eyebrows expressively as if to say ‘are you an idiot?’ “Uh, first day of term? Class starts again, back to sleeping in lectures and doing homework at three am? Ring any bells, genius?”

“Oh, fuck, yeah.” Louis paused. “Oh, _fuck,_ yeah.”

“You’re not telling me you _forgot,_ dopey arse? How drunk are you?”

“I didn’t... Christ, that’s come around quick –”

“Yeah, you wasted your whole summer – no offence,” Niall said quickly to Harry, “it’s just we’ve barely seen Lou all summer, cos he’s been locked up with you, see, so. Time flies, and all that.”

“Well I’d rather ‘waste’ my whole summer than get wast _ed_ my whole summer,” retorted Louis. “Did we have any maths homework?”

“Loads,” Niall said cheerfully.

“Have you done it? Can I copy?”

“Nope, and nope. We’re both screwed, sorry.”

Louis rubbed his eyes. Then his gaze fell upon the glass in Niall’s hand, filled with something acid green. It looked like it was full of sugar, and if Niall was drinking it, it had to be full of alcohol. “Can I have some of that?”

Amusedly, Niall passed it to him. “You look like you need it.”

Louis downed it, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighing heavily. Still comfortably snuggled underneath his arm, Harry looked impassive, but Niall looked impressed and Charlotte looked mildly disgusted, weakly lifting her head away from the bush to wrinkle her nose at him. Licking his teeth, which tasted like they were coated in fur, Louis handed the glass back.

“We’d better go, Harry.”

“All right. Bye, Niall. Bye, Charlotte.”

Remembering the incident of the shoe-vomiting man, he hurriedly turned Harry around and briskly steered him towards the side of the house, where he could see an open gate for them to go through.

As soon as they were safely bathed in shadows, Harry tightened his grip on Louis’ waist and there was a slight lurch, and Louis pitched slightly to the side as he found himself stepping into their bedroom. It was a disconcerting sensation, to take your foot off the ground in a darkened garden of someone’s student lodgings and put it back down in your own house. Whilst drunk, the experience was even more disturbing, and his stomach gave a lurch as he collapsed against Harry.

_Harry!_

_What?_

_You_ know _what! We were in public, we could have been seen –_

_What happened to ‘everyone will be drunk and high, if anything weird happens, they’ll just think it was a hallucination?’_

_I was talking about something a little less minor. A few shadows going astray, weird mass mood swings, that sort of thing. Not teleportation, for god’s sake._ He sniffed. _Anyway, what happened there? That journey was a bit turbulent, wasn’t it?_

 _We’re drunk. I couldn’t quite manage either the smoothness of the accuracy I’m usually capable of. My perception is slightly off,_ said Harry, sounding oddly guilty.

Louis narrowed his eyes. _Define ‘slightly’._

Harry admitted, _I was aiming for the kitchen._

~*~

A while later, when they were both ready for bed, two glasses of water placed carefully on Louis’ beside cabinet in preparation for the morning, they both slipped underneath the duvet. Harry just wore black boxers. Louis had pulled on a baggy, faded t-shirt advertising a band he didn’t like any more, and he’d brushed the spray out of his hair. He sat between Harry’s legs, leaning against his chest with his head lolling back onto Harry’s shoulder, while Harry traced random shapes on Louis’ bicep, humming quietly. It took Louis a while to realise that he was singing the melody of their song – he recognised the sound of Harry’s sadness, which seemed so much less hopeless when interwoven with his own. He smiled.

 _I didn’t mess up, did I?_ Harry asked quietly.

“When, babe?” Louis replied, fighting the urge to instantly say ‘no’.

Harry turned his head and bit him lightly on the neck. _Oi. I’ll know if you lie. I’m talking about the party._

“Of course you didn’t. You were fine.”

 _Charlotte doesn’t like me,_ Harry mused.

“She’s a bitch, she doesn’t like anyone. Sometimes I don’t think she even likes Niall.”

Harry was shocked. _What? But... how can she not like him? They’re together._

“Yeah, but she strikes me as the type who’d stop at nothing to get something out of someone. Manipulative, you know? And some people will go with anyone who’ll give them attention.” He sighed, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe I’m over-analysing. Maybe I just don’t like her. I have a bad feeling about the girl, is all. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.”

_Don’t you think she loves him?_

“No. Why, do you know something I don’t?”

Harry shook his head. _They’re not soul mates, if that’s what you mean, but not everyone needs one. Everyone_ has _a soul mate, but not everyone finds with them. Plenty of people fall for people who are nothing like them, or very similar to them. I guess it’s like...it’s like a jigsaw, where two pieces fit together exactly, but there’s other pieces that will go together as well. They weren’t made for each other, but they still fit. Think of a lock and a key. The key only fits that one lock, but you can get another key cut for the lock, or use a skeleton key. It’s not exclusive. Neither of them are crying out, you know? If someone_ needs _their soul mate, I don’t even have to properly listen. I just_ hear.

Slowly, Louis nodded his understanding. “Well, I may not have some supersonic bat-hearing,” he teased, flicking Harry’s earlobe, “but I have eyes, and I’ve seen a lot of couples in my time. She doesn’t look at him like she loves him. I’ve seen girls look at a boy like they’d do anything for him – like the world could fall apart and burn to ashes around them and they’d stay right where they were just so they could look at him a little longer. Kind of like the way I’ve seen you look at me.”

There was a long pause filled with lots of kissing – whispers not with voices, but with mouths, and hands running down arms and tugging through curls, and by the time they’d stopped kissing they both had shiny, slightly swollen lips and were breathing quite heavily, and had almost forgotten that they’d been mid-conversation. It took several more minutes for Louis’ heart rate to slow and his spinning head to remember what they’d been talking about.

“I just don’t think she loves him,” Louis said. “And I don’t think he really loves her either. Cares about her, yeah. Enjoys being around her, yeah. Fancies the lacy pink panties off her, yeah. Love? That’s a big word for someone like Niall. I know him – he wants to mess around during his uni years, he’s got no intention of settling down for a while yet. He’d only date someone he could have fun with, nothing much else.”

 _I think,_ Harry said gravely, _I would rather be on my own than be with someone just for the sake of it. I think it would be lonelier being with the wrong person._

“Not even if you could go back? If you could change it all, and exchange those nineteen years of being completely isolated, and have someone to spend them with? Someone you cared about, even if you didn’t love them?”

Harry shook his head wisely. _I wouldn’t want to have ever been with anyone else but you._

Louis’ heart swelled enormously in his chest like a balloon, so quickly and with such a painful throb of love that he was almost surprised that it didn’t burst.

 _I love you too,_ Harry said softly.

Louis squeezed his hand as hard as he could. It was one of those rare moments where he felt so full of love he was overflowing with it – he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, choking on the magnitude of his feelings for Harry that no words could accurately sum up. His chest hurt, radiating an intense, hot ache, and his cheeks burned and he could feel his heart trying to pummel its way through his ribcage like it wanted to leap out and profess his love to Harry as well. He had to swallow very hard.

After the moment had passed and he could breathe properly again, Harry asked softly, _How are you feeling about going back to university?_

“Mostly just that I can’t be bothered. I hate work and I hate the subjects I’m doing and it’s all been a big mistake, but if I drop out now I’ve wasted a year’s tuition fees and got nothing to show for it, so... I’ve made my bed, I’ll just have to lie in it.”

Confusedly, Harry said, _But_ I _made the bed this morning._

Louis chuckled. “It’s an expression, love,” he explained, smoothing an unruly curl. “It means I’ll have to deal with the consequences of my decision. I chose to come to uni, so I’ll have to stick it out. It’s you I’m more worried about.”

_Me?_

“Yeah, what will you do all day while I’m not here?”

_Oh. I didn’t think about that. I can’t come with you, can I?_

“Unfortunately not. And I doubt I’d get much work done if you did.”

Identical wicked grins adorned both of their faces for a split second before Harry managed to control his expression and adopted an innocent expression which made Louis cackle with laughter and poke him in the ribs. This spurred an impromptu tickling match which lasted several minutes and ended with Harry sitting triumphantly on Louis’ hips, pinning him down by the wrists with his large hands while shadows relentlessly tickled his armpits and dug into his sides, so that he was screeching with laughter and begging for mercy. Harry kissed him smugly on the nose before he let him sit up. 

 _I’ll be fine,_ Harry promised, continuing on from their previous conversation. _I’ll just hang out here. Read some books. I’m getting quite good at reading. Tidy up. Watch some movies. Whatever._

“I don’t like to leave you by yourself all day,” Louis said worriedly.

Harry’s eyes rolled like green glass marbles. _I’m not a_ dog, _Louis. I can entertain myself for the day and I’m one hundred percent toilet trained. Besides, it’s not as if you won’t know if I need you. You’ve got a direct line right into my head, remember?_

He slid down underneath the covers into a horizontal position, flipping Louis onto his side with ease and then rolling over so that they were spooning, Harry curled up with Louis’ smaller body wrapped around him. They made a slightly ridiculous sight; Harry’s long, skinny limbs folded up into an unwieldy ball while Louis’ shorter arms and legs made a protective cocoon around his back like a tortoise shell. They didn’t care.

Louis kissed the back of Harry’s neck. “I know I sound pretty paranoid, but you know I worry when I’m away from you.”

“I know,” murmured Harry. “But it’ll all be okay, Lou. You’ll see.”

 


End file.
